[HN Gopher] Harvard's response to federal government letter dema...
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Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes
Author : impish9208
Score : 767 points
Date : 2025-04-14 18:28 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.harvard.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.harvard.edu)
| dang wrote:
| Related ongoing thread: _Federal Government 's letter to Harvard
| demanding changes [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684386
| soup10 wrote:
| Harvard has a 50 billion endowment, what do they need federal
| funds for. If they value their intellectual independence so much,
| then cut the cord.
| nradov wrote:
| Much of that federal funding is for research, the same as any
| other R1 university. We all benefit from research findings.
| Endowments are used for other purposes.
|
| There are a few colleges that take no federal funding in order
| to maintain total independence (mostly for religious reasons).
| But their research output is virtually zero.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| The federal funds are for doing research that the government
| wants to fund, not keeping the university's lights on. This is
| about terminating a productive partnership, not ending a
| subsidy handout to schools.
| steadfastbeef wrote:
| Yeah but money is fungible.
| the_snooze wrote:
| Yup, people really need to learn their history. The modern
| federally-funded research university system came about as a
| direct result of the US getting caught with their pants down
| after Sputnik. The government decided it's in its best
| strategic interests to maintain long-term investments in
| basic and applied research. Those aren't things you can just
| spin up on short notice, though it's easy to kill it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_crisis#Response
| mullingitover wrote:
| Also, isn't a ton of the IP from federally funded research
| just handed over to US corporations for free or pennies on
| the dollar?
|
| Something tells me this is more of the current
| administration threatening to completely wreck US
| prosperity if they don't get wins on their bigoted social
| war agenda.
| tgma wrote:
| Next step: taxing that endowment (which is a good idea
| irrespective of the other demands: universities are government-
| subsidized tax-free hedge funds)
| nine_k wrote:
| Just consider the tax-exempt status as an indirect subsidy
| for research and education. I think its ROI is much higher
| than from any other way the government could use the
| uncollected amount.
| JohnCClarke wrote:
| I think that's what they're saying.
| twright wrote:
| I think this is the common-sense response. The push back I've
| heard is that endowments are apportioned to specific things.
| That is, it's not an open piggy bank. Nevertheless, $50B is a
| _lot_ even if the smallest allocation is 1% of the largest that
| is likely on the order of tens of millions.
| op00to wrote:
| Do you have money in the bank? Do you have income? If so, you
| don't really need any help from the government. If you value
| your personal independence so much, then cut the cord.
| malshe wrote:
| As a university professor, I agree with you. I think
| universities must cut the cord and be independent. The
| university faculty gave up the control to administrators and
| administrators, in turn, gave up the control to politicians.
| FabHK wrote:
| The government letter demands giving control back to tenured
| academics (from students, activists, and administrators).
| legitster wrote:
| They don't. This is the federal government threatening to
| withhold payment for research they commissioned.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > Harvard has a 50 billion endowment, what do they need federal
| funds for. If they value their intellectual independence so
| much, then cut the cord.
|
| I agree. Gulf monarchies will probably come in a give even more
| billions to these institutions anyway to make up for the
| losses. No strings attached of course...
|
| Harvard probably already secured some more funding from Qatar
| and what not.
| somethoughts wrote:
| It'd be an interesting strategy if you could split the
| organization based on departments that depend heavily on
| federal funds (i.e. perhaps STEM fields such as medicine and
| physics/hard sciences, etc.) and those that are not (and
| perhaps simultaneously requiring more freedom of thought).
|
| Perhaps resurrect the Radcliffe College to support the more
| intellectual, free thought based departments. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/about-the-
| institute/histor...
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| It'll be nice if an institution finally decides to oppose some of
| the recent government overreach.
|
| It's really shocking to see an institution in our country take
| action that is not in its immediate financial best interest
| (assuming this letter translates to an action)
| immibis wrote:
| It's not just about finances. Trump just announced (possibly
| accidentally) that he's going to start deporting American
| citizens to El Salvador gulags:
| https://news.sky.com/story/donald-trump-says-the-us-could-de...
|
| and they've been painting political enemies as criminals. It's
| pretty much the same situation as Russia/Putin but at an
| earlier stage of its development, and people want to avoid
| being the tallest grass that gets mowed.
|
| It's good that some institutions are standing up but I don't
| expect it to go well for them.
| goatlover wrote:
| He also said Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor may have committed
| treason for criticizing him as president after signing an
| executive order to investigate them.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I would have preferred a much more concise refusal.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| I'm not sure if you wanted it shorter for tonal reasons rather
| than simply for length of time to read, but I think it _was_
| pretty concise.
| carterschonwald wrote:
| Good. More organizations that have the resources should be
| putting their foot down.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The government subsidizes a private institution that cuts class
| sizes. Clearly education isn't their priority, so the subsidy can
| go.
| PerilousD wrote:
| I guess that Harvard probably does not need the Feds as much as
| the Feds need Harvard but I'm glad they are standing up to the
| Fascists. I'm going to have to see what NYU is doing now.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| What does the Federal Gov need Harvard for? Harvard gets 16% of
| its funding from them - what outweighs that on the aide of the
| Federal government?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The tax revenues from the $1.3T company that arose from their
| online yearbook?
|
| Lawyers? Doctors? Medical research? Thousands of highly
| educated graduates annually? 161 Nobel prize winners?
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Its not clear what the effect no Harvard would be on those
| metrics. And all of those are necessarily in Harvards best
| interest to maintain too.
|
| This is compared to a direct payment to sustain operations
| which the government is saying they may not be in favor of.
| But its not like Harvard would say "it may not be in our
| interest to produce successful people anymore."
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Harvard isn't the first to be targeted, nor will they be
| the last.
|
| The American university system is undeniably impactful on
| American success over the last century. It would be tough
| to put any sort of _exact_ number on it, but we can
| absolutely say "a shitload".
| nonethewiser wrote:
| >The American university system is undeniably impactful
| on American success over the last century.
|
| Merit based reforms would only help. What kind of DEI
| programs did Harvard have 100 years ago?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > And merit based reforms would help continue this.
|
| I look forward to some.
|
| This ain't it.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Ill settle for agreeing in principle that Harvard should
| be merit based
| cm2187 wrote:
| Don't confuse the credential factory with the skills and
| quality of the underlying students. Harvard is little more
| than a toll booth for students who were already smart and
| over-achieving. It's not like the teaching is
| extraordinary.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Harvard does substantially more than teach undergrads.
| cm2187 wrote:
| > _Lawyers? Doctors? Medical research? Thousands of
| highly educated graduates annually?_
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Lawyers and doctors aren't undergrads.
|
| Medical research depends heavily on faculty and
| postgraduate folks.
|
| Only some of their thousands of annual graduates are
| _undergrads_ - about 1 /3 of them, per Wiki.
| cm2187 wrote:
| I am confused. Who says credentials only apply to
| undergrads?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I said they do more than teach undergrads, to which you
| re-quoted me questioningly.
|
| Include postgraduate folks and they're still doing a lot
| more than just teaching and credentialing. Places like
| Harvard output _research_ , too.
| kelipso wrote:
| A university research lab is controlled by usually one
| professor or a very small number of professors. They can
| decide to move to another university and take the lab
| with them.
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| I wonder how many Harvard graduates work for either Trump or
| the federal government.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Most if not all of his cabinet (surprisingly) have an Ivy
| League background. Not sure if that's an endorsement on
| them, or an indictment on Ivy League schools
| andrewaylett wrote:
| One may expect that the funding is paying for research, such
| that the government finds the trade to have positive expected
| value.
| matwood wrote:
| Until recently, the US brand was where exceptional people
| wanted to go study and work. If you want to send the world's
| best and brightest to other countries that's fine, but it
| will have negative long term impacts on the US.
| duxup wrote:
| The GOP / Trump administration shows no real focus on employing
| experts, Trump shows no curiosity about anything. They're
| slashing research and science across the board department by
| department. They employ anti science people as heads of
| departments that require science.
|
| I don't think the GOP & Trump thinks they need anything from
| Harvard other than agreeing to impose first amendment
| violations on others on behalf of the GOP and Trump.
| amalcon wrote:
| The thing to remember is that these grants are their research
| budget. The endowment is largely earmarked for educational
| projects. Your average university professor is there because
| they want to do research, not because they want to teach - so
| the research budget is critical for educating as well.
|
| I assume Harvard has a plan for dealing with this dynamic. They
| have some extremely smart people there, so I don't doubt
| they've found a way.
| rocqua wrote:
| Harvard just earned some reputation with me. It was already a
| place with great research. But now, it is also in institution
| with actual moral fiber.
| apercu wrote:
| > actual moral fiber.
|
| Maybe? Or maybe they realize that they will lose all future
| credibility with students, government and NGO's if they bow to
| the conservative & Christian right?
|
| There are two outcomes for the the current American government
| situation - a slide in to authoritarianism (it's right there in
| Project 2025), or these wackjobs get voted out because they are
| destroying global financial stability.
|
| If it's the former, Harvard eventually has to cave because
| literal Nazi's.
|
| If it's the latter, Harvard is screwed if they capitulate.
| duxup wrote:
| Edited:
|
| Yes, I doubt they're cool with the ideas in the letter like
| the federal government auditing everyone's "viewpoint
| diversity" and mandating staffing changes to fit what the
| federal government wants.
| apercu wrote:
| I think.... you're agreeing with me?
| duxup wrote:
| I am, I misread your response, my bad.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| The thing is there's really no choice. The version of Harvard
| we get if they cave is the same as burning it all down. It
| would be dead as an educational institution and would only
| serve to foster the same kind of insane doublethink that
| leads people to ask for "diversity in viewpoints" at the same
| time they ask for the removal of the viewpoints they disagree
| with.
| oehtXRwMkIs wrote:
| I don't know, is it moral to give legitimacy and a platform to
| someone like J. Mark Ramseyer
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Mark_Ramseyer)? Less clear
| example would be keeping around Roland Fryer.
| arp242 wrote:
| I find that very few people and even fewer institutions are
| consistently always on the right side of things morally, even
| in very clear-cut cases (never mind that what exactly the
| "moral thing" is, is a whole discussion in itself). It's
| probably better to look at the overall pattern rather than a
| incidents (either good or bad).
|
| I have no opinion on Harvard myself by the way; I don't know
| enough about it. I'm just saying this is not an especially
| good criticism.
| palmotea wrote:
| > Harvard just earned some reputation with me. It was already a
| place with great research. But now, it is also in institution
| with actual moral fiber.
|
| I'm not so sure. The Harvard endowment is _huge_. I might not
| be so much "moral fiber" as having enough fuck you money that
| risks don't matter as much as they do to others.
| nashashmi wrote:
| > Although some of the demands outlined by the government are
| aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct
| governmental regulation of the "intellectual conditions" at
| Harvard.
|
| So alongside antisemitism, The other demand is for changes in
| intellect. For some reason this reeks of Christian evangelical
| movement to purge wokism and anti-Zionism, both of which have run
| counter to evangelical dogma.
| hedayet wrote:
| Presidents and their policies come and go; knowledge stays and
| grows.
|
| As long as educators aren't selling themselves short, I remain
| optimistic about the future.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| Einstein essentially gave up his professorship at the
| University of Berlin. How far into the future are you looking?
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1932/10/18/archives/einstein-would-q...
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| the irony of the evil being perpetrated around the world in the
| name of "antisemitism" is mind boggling
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| In the name of "fighting antisemitism"?
|
| It's true, though. It's a convenient tool. "What do you mean
| you don't want to cede control to us? Don't you want to fight
| antisemitism?!"
| darknavi wrote:
| Smells awfully like Putin's trumped up (ayy) play in Ukraine to
| "de-nazify".
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Mind boggling the evils being perpetrated today in the name of
| "anti-zionism"
| almogo wrote:
| No mention of anti-Asian discrimination? It made big rounds in
| all the American media circles a few years back, and if memory
| serves, MAGA boarded that train too.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| The page acknowledges that Harvard lost that case and will
| comply with the ruling.
| overfeed wrote:
| These "values" are not sincerely held, but tactical. Once they
| got the SCOTUS win and affirmative action was toast, they
| quickly moved on from fighting anti-Asian hate to a new fig-
| leaf/tool to useful for fighting the next ideological battle,
| which was prominent protests against government policy, which
| happened to be pro-Palestine, so this is the best tool for the
| job.
|
| The messaging is very similar too, conflating pro-diversity
| with anti-whiteness, or anti-asian when needed, and now
| redefining being pro-Palestine as anti-Semitic or pro-Hamas.
| It's dumb, lacks nuance, but effective when the Fifth estate is
| pliant, co-opted or otherwise ineffective.
| jimmydddd wrote:
| Good points. But they did open themselves up to this by
| blatantly discriminating against Asian students. I mean, "you
| have an ulterior motive in arguing against our hugely racist
| policies" is not a great defense.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _These "values" are not sincerely held, but tactical._"
|
| By MAGA, yes. Asians themselves haven't forgotten about it
| nor will they forgive anytime soon.
| yongjik wrote:
| MAGA loves to say how universities screw over poor hard-working
| Asian students, and then they turn around and defund
| universities and fire researchers. Their pity on Asians is not
| sincere, because they detest higher education in the first
| place.
|
| And I'm saying this as an Asian father whose kid is going to a
| US college this year.
| comte7092 wrote:
| > MAGA boarded that train too
|
| More like they found some useful idiots
| areoform wrote:
| If you've read history, this rhymes with certain acts that have
| happened before under certain regimes. Under a non-authoritarian
| Government, this type of showboating can be dismissed, but when
| habeas corpus and the right to due process is suspended -- such
| actions take on a very different cast indeed.
|
| It's good that Harvard is fighting this. The more people accede,
| the more they will accelerate down a path where there is no
| coming back from.
| ghusto wrote:
| The point of no return is Trump getting a third term. The
| parallels are strong there.
|
| I was just thinking this morning that we very much needed the
| USA's help fighting Nazi Germany, but who will we turn to when
| we're fighting fascists coming from the East _and_ West?
| (Russia and the USA)
| umanwizard wrote:
| What is your definition of "fascists"?
|
| Edit to explain my point, because I'm getting downvoted
| (which I don't care about, but I _do_ care if people don't
| understand my point): fascism was a specific
| ideology/movement in the 20th century that, other than being
| right-wing and authoritarian, doesn't bear much resemblance
| to right-wing authoritarianism today: they have different
| goals, different motives, promote different policies, etc.
|
| It seems people just use "fascism" as a synonym for
| "destructive right-wing populism" or even just "bad". And I
| agree that things like the MAGA movement, or AfD in Germany,
| ARE bad, and one could even argue that they are just as bad
| as historical fascism.
|
| But I don't think we should use "fascism" in this way,
| because it gives ammo to your opponents: the supporters of
| these right-wing movements can point out that indeed, they
| are not the same as historical fascism and make you look
| silly.
| vel0city wrote:
| The opening passage of the Wikipedia article:
|
| Fascism (/'faeSIz@m/ FASH-iz-@m) is a far-right [checks
| box], authoritarian [ignoring courts decisions, sending
| people to prisons without any due process; check], and
| ultranationalist [MAGA, american exceptionalism, etc;
| check] political ideology and movement, characterized by a
| dictatorial leader [do I really need to explain; check],
| centralized autocracy [feckless GOP congress, EOs left and
| right; check], militarism, forcible suppression of
| opposition [J6, anyone? also see Maine and TFA and the law
| firms being blacklisted and more; check], belief in a
| natural social hierarchy [pro-life, shrouded in
| "traditional family values", anti-gay, anti-trans, etc;
| check], subordination of individual interests for the
| perceived good of the nation or race [tariffs, massive
| deportations without due process, etc; check], and strong
| regimentation of society and the economy [bathroom bills,
| tariff policies with exceptions for those who bribe him
| with million dollar dinner purchases, etc; check].
|
| Tell me how this doesn't fit?
| mariusor wrote:
| I feel like most people that are using the term
| deliberately, are doing so based on reasoning close to
| Umberto Eco's "Ur-fascism" essay:
| https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-
| fasci...
|
| If you want something more modern, someone made a tracker:
| https://www.realtimefascism.com/
|
| The tracker uses "the 14 characteristics of fascism
| identified by Dr. Lawrence Britt" (which is slightly
| different): https://osbcontent.s3-eu-
| west-1.amazonaws.com/PC-00466.pdf
| pqtyw wrote:
| > historical fascism
|
| I mean.. Mussolini's Italy or 30s Austria weren't exactly
| Nazi Germany. So while there still might be some way to go
| the comparison is not that extreme.
|
| Equating Trump with Hitler is of course a stretch.
| Mussolini however? Well..
| worik wrote:
| > who will we turn to when we're fighting fascists coming
| from the East _and_ West? (Russia and the USA)
|
| Like a heart attack can be good for your health,perhaps this
| USA withdrawal will be good for Europe. (If Europe is what
| you mean)
| bilbo0s wrote:
| _The point of no return is Trump getting a third term_
|
| That's a little alarmist. It's not going to happen.
|
| Things are close to going off the rails and people are
| understandably troubled with the direction in which the US
| government is headed. I am as well. But we all need to start
| turning down the temperature a bit.
| mtoner23 wrote:
| How did that work the last 10 times we said the things
| trump wants to do aren't gonna happen. He's saying he will
| so we should believe him
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/04/trump-
| t...
|
| https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-going-run-third-term-
| ste...
| allturtles wrote:
| Why do you consider it alarmist? Trump has repeatedly said
| he would do it, and that he's "not joking" about it.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| I have had to listen to people like you for almost 10 years
| talk about things Trump said that were never going to
| happen. At what point do you just accept the evidence of
| your eyes and ears?
| selectodude wrote:
| None of the rest of the stuff happening was going to happen
| either, I'm sure.
|
| Legal residents are being kidnapped and disappeared into
| foreign gulags but let's turn down the temperature, right?
| ziddoap wrote:
| The number of times I've read people say _" That's alarmist
| and will never happen"_, just to see that exact thing
| happen, is a lot.
| Latty wrote:
| People keep saying this about everything the admin does
| before they do it. Pretending it won't happen won't stop it
| happening.
|
| The real question is, who is left to stop it? The man is
| saying he's not joking about it. It's in line with his
| previous actions. They have actively refused to comply with
| court orders. They actively tried to reject the results of
| an election.
|
| Why is it alarmist to say they may do the thing they want
| to do, and can do?
| goatlover wrote:
| Steve Bannon went on Bill Maher recently saying they are
| working on finding a way to make it happen. He was not
| joking. When challenged, Bannon's response was that Trump
| was already flooding the courts with cases.
| dylan604 wrote:
| If there was no track record of Trump doing things off the
| rails, we could turn down the temps. However, he very much
| does not, and quite the opposite. Him admitting they are
| "looking into it" on how to achieve a third term is quite
| unsettling. Especially with congress acquiescing to any
| whim he has as well as SCOTUS giving him permission to do
| whatevs. None of this instills confidence that there will
| be any push back.
|
| The same people that came up with Project 2025 are the very
| people that would come up with plans for giving a third
| term. Those plans might seem ridiculous to some, but so did
| the alternate electors and the other things Trump has
| already tried before. The fact that no negative outcome
| came from any of those previous attempts just emboldens
| even further attempts.
| arp242 wrote:
| It will definitely happen if everyone is as complacent as
| that. At this point this attitude is extremely hard to take
| serious: you're either not paying attention or you're not
| engaging in good faith.
| ecb_penguin wrote:
| > That's a little alarmist. It's not going to happen.
|
| Serious question, when someone tells you what they want,
| why don't want you believe them?
|
| It's openly being discussed and you think it's alarmist?
| No, we need to turn the temperature up and start taking
| people at their word.
| epolanski wrote:
| The point of no return was January 6th 2021!
|
| Once Americans pardoned an attempt by the sitting president
| to overthrow US democracy the game's over.
|
| America desperately needs a huge revision to the powers
| conceded to individuals and should instead mature to a
| slower, maybe less effective at times, but stronger democracy
| that nurtures parliamentary debate and discourse.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Once Americans pardoned an attempt by the sitting
| president to overthrow US democracy it 's over already_
|
| By this logic it was "over already" at the end of the Civil
| War. Suspending _habeus corpus_ , ignoring the courts and
| then meeting with public indifference will be the point of
| no return. Trump's third term would just be the canary
| passing out.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > By this logic it was "over already" at the end of the
| Civil War.
|
| That may be true. The North won the war, but let the
| ideology that caused it fester.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I think people frequently forget that the North didn't
| actually have the firepower to stamp out the ideology.
|
| Like any ideology, you can't actually destroy it with
| force any other way than burning books and, eventually,
| men.
|
| And whether or not that would have been wise: the war was
| extremely costly for the North and there was a non-zero
| chance that if they started dropping every third
| Southerner from the gallows the federal government would
| lose legitimacy in the eyes of the survivors on both
| sides of the Mason-Dixon and that'd be it.
| outer_web wrote:
| It could have been water under the bridge if we simply did
| not re-elect him. But now we have a second term emboldened
| by de facto total immunity.
| thrance wrote:
| It would have been water under the bridge if him and his
| cronies all got perpetuity starting jan 7th and we never
| heard of them ever again. Instead the dems chose a
| demonstration of weakness, and showed that an attempt on
| our democracy would be punished by a strong worded
| reprimand, at best.
| repeekad wrote:
| $9 billion dollars from the federal government to Harvard
| equates to nearly $30 per American, that is an ignorant amount
| of money for a single academic institution, surely the world
| isn't so black and white that we can have a conversation about
| how much money is leaking out of our tax dollars without it
| always coming back to "fascism"?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > $9 billion dollars from the federal government to Harvard
| equates to nearly $30 per American...
|
| Now do what it _gets_ them.
| repeekad wrote:
| given my comment got railroaded instantly, this is clearly
| what everyone thinks, but let's at least have that
| conversation rather than blindly pumping money into
| academia while local schools can't even afford books
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The people who want to hurt Harvard also want to hurt the
| local schools.
| repeekad wrote:
| this is identity politics, rather than discussing ideas
| we discuss whose ideas they are and whether we like that
| person, I don't like that kind of discourse and don't
| find it valuable, bad people can have good ideas and vice
| versa
|
| edit: that being said, I agree what's happening to
| harvard is in bad faith and has nothing to do with making
| the government more efficient, so my argument isn't good
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| It's not identity politics to observe that the dilemma
| you presented (public funding for universities xor local
| schools) is false.
| roughly wrote:
| When the guy lifting your TV starts quoting Marx at you,
| it's not actually an invitation to engage in
| philosophical discourse, and no amount of sound economic
| reasoning is getting your TV back.
|
| The Trump administration is not, has not, and will not be
| arguing in good faith. Stop pretending we're working
| collaboratively towards a shared future - they're either
| stealing your television or stealing your neighbor's
| television, and attempts to interrogate the merits of
| their television relocation policy aren't shedding any
| actual light to the situation.
| repeekad wrote:
| @TimorousBestie (I can't reply inline due to comment
| depth)
|
| I didn't say fund harvard xor fund local schools, I said
| it's crazy how much money harvard gets. The comment I'm
| replying to is who implies I must support harvard funding
| xor I must support trump, "the people who want to hurt
| harvard", I don't think that's true. I'm allowed to think
| federal funds for academia are too high and also think
| Trump is bad for the country
| matwood wrote:
| > I said it's crazy how much money harvard gets
|
| A place that has all the facilities, faculty and pedigree
| to pull some of the best researchers from all over the
| world. It's in fact crazy that Harvard, or any R1
| university, wouldn't get a large amount of research
| dollars from the federal government.
| repeekad wrote:
| Sure, but you can understand the perspective of someone
| growing up with zero access to those resources and lives
| in a rural part of the country hearing your argument and
| then voting for someone like trump, I would argue that
| sentiment is one of the forces driving regular people
| away from democrats and lost them the election in 2024,
| it is an "ivory tower" perspective and regular americans
| don't buy it (even if it's true that harvard is a great
| investment for public money)
| matwood wrote:
| I agree the democrats have terrible messaging, but what
| would really help 'regular' Americans is universal
| healthcare, free education, and maybe even UBI. As
| departments get DOGE'd a lot of 'regular' Americans are
| starting to find out where a lot of federal money goes,
| to those rural parts of the country.
|
| And let's be honest. The force 'driving people away from
| the democrats' is the propaganda network known as Fox
| News.
| jdlshore wrote:
| You seem to be missing the point that federal research
| grants are not gifts, but instead paying for a service.
| neaden wrote:
| We can have a discussion on if the money we spend is
| worth it sure. That's not what's happening now, Trumps
| not asking if this is the best way to fund research, he's
| demanding Harvard ban masks and punish students for
| engaging in political behavior he doesn't like. You're
| bringing up an entirely separate issue.
| guax wrote:
| No need for that. There is more than enough money being
| funnelled into defense to fund Harvard + everything else
| you can think of and still have the largest defense
| spending in the world.
|
| Arguing that Harvard gets too much while ignoring 99% of
| the budget is not a reasonable stance.
| gadflyinyoureye wrote:
| This is a logical fallacy of whataboutism. It is
| perfectly possible to say that the DOD gets too much
| money as does Harvard.
| linktraveler wrote:
| even partially agreeing with anything the trump
| administration does on this forum makes you a target for
| downvotes.
|
| let me cred fall. idgaDANG
| repeekad wrote:
| you say as your comment about downvotes gets downvoted,
| echo chambers are dangerous to democracy imo
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Is there any evidence that we've been "blindly" pumping
| money into academia? Funding agencies are part of the
| federal budget and don't just get everything they ask
| for. Then those agencies have all sorts of review
| procedures for choosing grant awardees.
|
| There isn't just some big slush fund labeled "dumb
| science ideas" that everybody grabs from.
| nineplay wrote:
| I promise you right now that no one in the Trump
| administration is interested into providing more books to
| local schools. Quite the opposite
| __loam wrote:
| Massachusetts has some of the best public schools in the
| nation.
| javiramos wrote:
| I invite you to write or read a proposal for a multi $M
| grant before saying that money is being blindly pumped.
| matwood wrote:
| First, it's not blind. These big universities are where a
| ton of research happens. It makes sense that research
| dollars will end up there.
|
| Second, I agree that local schools (I guess you mean
| K-12?) should get more money. DOGE is busy cutting that
| also.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| If you are looking for someone to take this money and
| redirect it to local schools I have some bad news for
| you.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| > that we can have a conversation about how much money is
| leaking out of our tax dollars
|
| Of course. It's clear you didn't read the letter because
| Harvard addresses this specifically. The Trump admin is
| literally refusing to have a conversation. This is 100%
| politically motivated and it's obvious to anyone who is not
| in the Trump cult. This is particularly disgusting because
| their doing it under the guise of 'antisemitism', while Trump
| keeps friends with known white supremacists.
| repeekad wrote:
| nope, just a random stranger trying to add some random
| noise into these often one sided conversations, I of course
| support public academic investment and Trump is bad for the
| country, but I worry we've fully mapped one to one trump
| and nazis, and it just doesn't resonate with me as much as
| it seems it does everyone else.
|
| I'm from small town America, I know that the federal
| government doesn't care about my hometown, so when I hear
| things like Harvard gets billions while already having tens
| of billions in endowment, it's hard for me to not think
| that's crazy and why can't that money go to average
| americans, meanwhile here I am typing words into a screen
| connected to the internet so I fully acknowledge I've
| benefited from the institution
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| Small towns overwhelmingly get more federal dollars than
| they put in. Big cities subsidize small towns.
|
| >it's hard for me to not think that's crazy and why can't
| that money go to average americans
|
| Because Americans in small towns overwhelmingly vote for
| people who lower taxes for rich people and promise not
| reduce the scope of government. Instead of blaming
| Harvard, why don't you ask your neighbors why they like
| to vote for people who refuse to help them?
| vel0city wrote:
| > it's hard for me to not think that's crazy and why
| can't that money go to average americans
|
| Are there world-class research facilities in your small
| town? Why would it be hard for you to see it makes sense
| for billions to be spent on research at world-class
| facilities with world-class scientists?
|
| FWIW, chances are whatever local state university nearby
| also receives quite a bit from federal grants as well.
| But it probably scales based on the research facilities
| and staff actually there. Do you think it would be better
| management of federal resources to instead spend the same
| amount at facilities that don't do nearly as impactful or
| nearly as much research?
|
| These are grants for specific research. Researchers put
| together proposals to study things, the federal
| government decides that's something worth looking into,
| and funding gets cut (simplified). Harvard has _a lot_ of
| people doing pretty fancy research, so it makes sense
| they 'd have _a lot_ of grant proposals requiring fancy
| and expensive things. Complain to your state legislature
| for not focusing on making your local university a
| research university if you feel your area should be
| getting more of these grants. But let me guess, you
| probably voted for people who argued for lower taxes.
| Gee, I wonder what they found to cut...
|
| And FWIW the federal government spends a bunch on a lot
| of small-town America. FEMA grants for emergency
| preparedness comes to mind. A higher percentage of
| populations of small-town America live off federal aid
| programs. Small-town America also sees more of its school
| funding from federal sources and grants.
| matwood wrote:
| > it's hard for me to not think that's crazy and why
| can't that money go to average americans
|
| The democrats have been trying to pass universal
| healthcare and free higher education it feels like
| _forever_. UBI has even come up a few times. Nothing that
| Trump is doing is for anyone but himself and his rich
| friends.
| MR_Bulldops wrote:
| Let's have a conversation about leaking tax dollars. How do
| you feel about our tax dollars directly enriching the sitting
| president? How do you feel about our tax dollars leaking into
| a military parade to celebrate the president's birthday? If
| you don't address those leaks, how can we be expected to take
| people like you seriously when you defend authoritarian
| policy as fiscally responsible?
| thecrumb wrote:
| You forgot the cost of his golf excursions. (there are a
| surprising number of Trump golf trackers LOL)
|
| https://didtrumpgolftoday.com/
|
| "Est. cost to taxpayers for golf since returning to office:
| $32,200,000"
| repeekad wrote:
| that's 10 cents per american (still crazy!), but not $30,
| and $30 is only for Harvard much less how much federal
| funds go to other schools
|
| Obviously I'd rather that 10 cents go to something
| productive, but on the national stage trump golfing feels
| like just a distraction from much more important topics
| matwood wrote:
| You also forgot the birthday military parade he wants
| that's been estimated to cost ~$100M.
| __loam wrote:
| And the salaries for DOGE employees that are higher than
| the highest pay band.
| oldprogrammer2 wrote:
| Yeah, his reasoning is suspect to a lot of folks, but I'm not
| sure why everyone is so comfortable with the consolidation of
| wealth at these elite institutions.
| __loam wrote:
| There's definitely a conversation we can have about the
| cost and accessibility of higher education in this country.
| I don't think that conversation should include an
| administration that is unilaterally and arbitrarily
| canceling international student visas, threatening to
| withhold research funding that was already allocated by
| congress, and turning back foreign scientists at the border
| for things they said in private conversation that the
| government only knows about after a warrantless search.
| ipaddr wrote:
| If the entire budget was income taxes and everyone paid the
| same including babies then sure $30 dollars or it's 1/4 of
| the money the government gave to Musk over the last 20 years.
| plorg wrote:
| I would absolutely love to see my federal tax dollars doled
| out to schools and institutions where they would more
| directly benefit a wider set of people. If that was what was
| under discussion it would be great. The administration isn't
| proposing to redirect that money, simply rescind it, and they
| are very, extremely clearly attempting to use this to coerce
| institutions and punish people for their speech and
| associations.
| allturtles wrote:
| The dispute between Harvard and the Trump has nothing to do
| with fiscal responsibility. You can read the government
| letter and see for yourself, none of it is about Harvard
| spending research money irresponsibly. It is an attempt to
| assert deep government control over the institution's
| policies and ideologies. So your comment reads as an attempt
| to distract from the real issues at hand, which I (and I
| think many others here) consider existential for the survival
| of the rule of law in the U.S.
| DarkmSparks wrote:
| Maybe. Not sure. More explicitly the letter demands that
| tenured professors be given more decision making power than
| non academic activists.
|
| The outright dismissal of the letter suggests that at least
| maybe non academic activists are calling the shots, and if
| that is true Harvard is destined to wither and die.
| allturtles wrote:
| > More explicitly the letter demands that tenured
| professors be given more decision making power than non
| academic activists.
|
| 1) Granting that giving more power to tenured professors
| would be a good thing, in what way is it legal, wise, or
| good for the executive branch to achieve this in the
| absence of any law by strong arming individual private
| institutions that it has decided to target on ad hoc
| basis?
|
| 2) You are reading selectively, it says "fostering clear
| lines of authority and accountability; empowering tenured
| professors and senior leadership, and, from among the
| tenured professoriate and senior leadership, exclusively
| those most devoted to the scholarly mission of the
| University and _committed to the changes indicated in
| this letter_ " [emphasis mine]. So in other words, it is
| a requirement that the university give power to those
| ideologically-aligned with the Trump administration. This
| is a very clear and alarming violation of the first
| amendment.
|
| In toto, the letter is an attempt to impose ideological
| reform in a private institution, and is part of a wider
| attempt by the current administration to browbeat or
| subvert every institution that might act to curtail (or
| even speak out against) its actions.
| DarkmSparks wrote:
| I read "the changes indicated in this letter" to mean
| "removing power from non academic activists"
|
| While I kinda agree that can also be taken to mean "those
| ideologically-aligned with the Trump administration", it
| still means those calling the shots are the non academic
| activists not aligned with an ideology of promoting
| academic merit....
|
| Maybe.
| rstuart4133 wrote:
| > "removing power from non academic activists"
|
| That sentence (from the letter) makes no sense. An
| activist isn't someone with power to do something. If
| they had that power, they wouldn't be advocating it, they
| would do it.
|
| What that insisting the University do is shut down people
| talking and protesting with viewpoints they disagree
| with. They list those viewpoints in their letter: "...,
| Students for Justice in Palestine, and the National
| Lawyers Guild". The pro Israeli protests that happened
| aren't mentioned. If they get away with this, I'm sure a
| lot more viewpoints will follow.
|
| This isn't about powers. It's about controlling what
| people can and can not say on a University campus.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| Maybe there's a conversation to be had about that but this
| isn't it, this is attempted coercion, and yes, it is fascism.
| thrance wrote:
| Instead it will go straight to military contractors, yay!
| tacticalturtle wrote:
| The 9 billion isn't specifically just for Harvard "the
| university".
|
| The lion's share of it appears to be NIH programs for area
| hospitals - all of which are associated with Harvard.
|
| https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/4/funding-
| review-h...
|
| We all benefit from that research.
| outer_web wrote:
| Habeas corpus - still in effect unless you're already in El
| Salvador.
| adamc wrote:
| Although the president was caught on mic musing about
| deporting American citizens.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| Not caught, he held a press conference and announced that
| he was going to try to do it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Although the president was caught on mic musing about
| deporting American citizens_
|
| The canaries in our coal mine are permanent residents.
| Anything that can legally be done to a permanent resident
| can basically be done to a "bad" citizen. Trump is trying
| to run roughshod over permanent residents' _habeus corpus_
| rights. Courts are currently pushing back; I expect he will
| defy them. That, for me, will be the line at which I 'll
| start helping with civil disruption.
| goatlover wrote:
| "Bad" citizen can end up meaning anything Trump doesn't
| like, such as criticism. Even the most conservative
| person should be worried about this.
| outer_web wrote:
| Especially the most conservative person.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| He didn't get caught doing anything; he said it, openly,
| during an interview:
| https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lmrx6b2gxy2f
| morkalork wrote:
| Yeah, this is not going to end well for all y'all:
|
| https://bsky.app/profile/pbump.com/post/3lmryeyuj6s2v
| areoform wrote:
| It's not.
|
| The rubicon has already been crossed. If you asked some of
| the framers of the US constitution - beyond all other
| factors, unelected powers etc - what was the _one_ defining
| trait of the government structure they wished to avoid; they
| 'd have replied with arbitrary imprisonment and the
| suspension of due process.
|
| Please don't take my word for it, hear it from the
| Prosecutor's Prosecutor. The SCOTUS justice, former AG and
| former USSG who led the American prosecution against the
| Nazis at Nuremberg, Robert H. Jackson, No
| society is free where government makes one person's liberty
| depend upon the arbitrary will of another. Dictatorships have
| done this since time immemorial. They do now. Russian laws of
| 1934 authorized the People's Commissariat to imprison, banish
| and exile Russian citizens as well as "foreign subjects who
| are socially dangerous."' Hitler's secret police were given
| like powers. German courts were forbidden to make any inquiry
| whatever as to the information on which the police acted. Our
| Bill of Rights was written to prevent such oppressive
| practices. Under it this Nation has fostered and protected
| individual freedom. The Founders abhorred
| arbitrary one-man imprisonments. Their belief was--our
| constitutional principles are-that no person of any faith,
| rich or poor, high or low, native or foreigner, white or
| colored, can have his life, liberty or property taken
| "without due process of law." This means to me that neither
| the federal police nor federal prosecutors nor any other
| governmental official, whatever his title, can put or keep
| people in prison without accountability to courts of justice.
| It means that individual liberty is too highly prized in this
| country to allow executive officials to imprison and hold
| people on the basis of information kept secret from courts.
| It means that Mezei should not be deprived of his liberty
| indefinitely except as the result of a fair open court
| hearing in which evidence is appraised by the court, not by
| the prosecutor
|
| There is a reason why citizenship was not a requirement for
| receiving due process under the law. Citizenships are
| bestowed by the government. They can be taken away by the
| government. The framers held certain rights to be unalienable
| from human beings - something that no government can take
| away, and that was the right to not be unjustly detained for
| your beliefs, your behavior, your dress, your religion or
| composure.
|
| Suspending due process for anyone is fundamentally un-
| American. But we have crossed that threshold. What comes next
| is fairly inevitable - if the process isn't stopped now.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The more fundamental corollary is that the US government
| does not grant any rights. We have them by default and cede
| limited power for the benefit of an orderly society. Within
| such a framework, it should be impossible to disenfranchise
| people by denying them due process.
| areoform wrote:
| Precisely. If only the people who worship the Declaration
| of Independence and recite it like parrots singing a
| psalm, actually _understood_ what the document was
| saying.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| Unfortunately, those people have a lot of practice
| worshipping a text that they have not read.
| Muromec wrote:
| >Within such a framework, it should be impossible to
| disenfranchise people by denying them due process.
|
| Yet, US was systematically disenfranchising people for
| centuries
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Within the lifetimes of some of us, lynchings were still
| common.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| I've posted here before that this idea that we just have
| rights is actually problematic, not the least reason for
| which is that whether we have such rights or not, their
| mere existence has never and will never actually defend
| anyone from any violation of them.
|
| Rights are just the concessions that the less powerful
| have extracted from the powerful by virtue and
| utilization of power. This perspective has the double
| benefit not relying on the imaginary and making it clear
| that if you don't fight for your rights you will not get
| to keep them. Rights may be God given, but God isn't
| going to come down and rescue you from a concentration
| camp if you get put there by an autocrat who doesn't like
| your "free speech."
|
| All that matters is whether we will personally tolerate
| abuses against human beings and what we are willing to do
| to prevent them. If I had my way, talk of rights qua
| rights would be swept into the dustbin of history with
| other imaginary stuff like religion in favor of concrete,
| ideally evidence based, free human discussion about what
| human beings want from the universe and what we are
| willing to endure to get it.
| dmurray wrote:
| > The rubicon has already been crossed
|
| So when would you consider the US crossed this threshold?
| Guantanamo Bay? The internment of ethnic Japanese in WW2?
| The Trail of Tears? Or is there something about the
| excesses of this particular administration that makes this
| an unprecedented and irreversible step, if I understand
| your metaphor correctly?
| tastyface wrote:
| Respect for rule of law and democratic norms. "We are in
| the process of the second American Revolution, which will
| remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."
| ren_engineer wrote:
| the judge you are quoting literally worked in FDR's admin
| when they were deporting millions of Mexicans, regardless
| of whether they were born in the US. They didn't get due
| process
| areoform wrote:
| That judge was against the interment of Japanese
| Americans. He took a stand against anyone deprived of due
| process throughout his life.
|
| The US came close to losing its democracy status with
| FDR, which is why after he died, the 22nd Amendment was
| quickly created - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-
| second_Amendment_to_the...
| pqtyw wrote:
| Perhaps but "the framers of the US constitution" are almost
| always over idealized. It was the very early stages of
| democracy (even if you can call it that). When elected to
| office they regularly used they official powers to supress
| political opponents, partisan enmity was endemic and the
| levels of corruption were pretty extreme (of course there
| was only so much money to go around due to very low taxes).
| Trump is unhinged of course but some of the founders or
| early US politicians weren't too far off...
|
| The constitution was more of an aspirational ideal than a
| binding document back then since there were very limited
| ways too enforce it (e.g. the only way to repeal the Alien
| and Sedition Acts was by electing a new
| president/congress). The First Amendment was also
| interpreted and viewed extremely different that it is now
| before the 1900s...
| matthewrobertso wrote:
| What's your take on the government drone striking American
| citizens without any sort of trial?
| namaria wrote:
| > The framers held certain rights to be unalienable from
| human beings - something that no government can take away
|
| Unless, of course, the government considers you to be 2/3
| of a person
| cocacola1 wrote:
| Distinction without a difference, but it's 3/5.
| chomp wrote:
| So you acknowledge that it's a race for the government to get
| permanent residents on flights as fast as they can to El
| Salvador before a petition is able to be filed?
| outer_web wrote:
| Uh yeah, why wouldn't I?
|
| I mean I don't know that it's their policy but it sure
| looks that way.
| ziddoap wrote:
| Just say "oops, sorry, that was a mistake but we can't get
| that person back" every time you want to disappear someone,
| and somehow you'll have people claiming that habeas corpus is
| still alive and well while people get disappeared.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| Unless you're Stephen Miller, who insists that no mistake
| was made:
| https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lmrobxubic23
|
| And, more recently, Bukele and Trump insisted that they
| would not return a "terrorist" to the United States:
| https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lmrwrrkbnf2e
|
| It's clear that the administration does not consider
| collateral damage a bug, but a feature; it confirms that as
| long as they insist that they will not do anything, then
| nothing will be done.
| ziddoap wrote:
| Well one thing is for sure: it's not a coincidence that
| after they determined that it was impossible to get him
| back, they've changed the narrative to "no mistake was
| made" (and begun throwing around the magic word
| "terrorist" which justifies all sorts of things).
| malfist wrote:
| If they can decide someone is a migrant and deport them
| without due process and no recourse, they can decide anyone
| is a migrant and deport them without due process.
|
| If a class of people don't have habeas corpus, no one does.
| almostgotcaught wrote:
| the timeline of the first plane clearly shows that that is
| not the case (plane departed after the judge's stay). it
| would be helpful if people didn't cavalierly pronounce these
| kinds of things.
| chairmansteve wrote:
| It's starting to like authoritarian is the wrong word.
|
| Totalitarian? not yet, but....
| jcranmer wrote:
| Habeas corpus doesn't seem to be working for Rumeysa Ozturk
| right now.
| andrepd wrote:
| It was very depressing (if financially understandable) to see
| other institutions immediately caving in.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| What institutions other than Columbia are caving in?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Every law firm.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| Every law firm is hyperbole but I meant what other
| universities other than Columbia?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Every law firm is hyperbole_
|
| How? Which major law firm is standing up like Harvard is?
|
| > _I meant what other universities other than Columbia?_
|
| Trump has only really gone after Columbia and Harvard.
| (Institution is a broader word than university.)
| Anechoic wrote:
| _How? Which major law firm is standing up like Harvard
| is?_
|
| WilerHale and Jenner & BLock are two:
| https://www.npr.org/2025/03/28/g-s1-56890/law-firms-sue-
| trum...
| 9283409232 wrote:
| > How? Which major law firm is standing up like Harvard
| is?
|
| Perkins Coie, Covington & Burling LLP, and Elias Law
| Group are fighting Trump's executive order. Those are 3
| of the biggest law firms in the US. As far as I know only
| two major firms have made deals with Trump while many are
| sitting quiet but not everyone is cowering.
| iecheruo wrote:
| Susman Godfrey.
|
| There's a lot going on and it's really hard to keep
| abreast of it all
|
| https://www.reuters.com/legal/trump-says-law-firms-agree-
| pro...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Thank you.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| And University of Washington and University of California
| on the west coast, although he's not directly threatening
| them. Rather, his HHS appointment has just quietly pulled
| all of the funding for their medical and biological
| research programs.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| A long list of extremely large, well-heeled law firms
| ty6853 wrote:
| They will once the administration revokes the visas of half
| their grad students and shit-can all the international
| undergrad tuition income.
| FloorEgg wrote:
| Did you read the letter sent from the government to Harvard?
| esrauch wrote:
| I did; it explicitly demanding an audit of employees and
| students political views, the forced hiring of more
| professors who are sympathetic to the current
| administration's politics.
|
| That doesn't sound authoritarian to you? Can you imagine if
| Obama had demanded that any university do an ideological
| purge of its conservative staff and students?
| BuckRogers wrote:
| This is a matter of national security.
| nineplay wrote:
| What specifical threat to our nation are they trying to
| defend against?
| pqtyw wrote:
| Well yes.. an attempt by pseudo-fascists to takeover
| universities and other public institutions is indeed a
| matter of national security.
| ziddoap wrote:
| You only used one of the magical thought-stopping
| phrases.
|
| You're supposed to say that it will help the children
| too.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Can you imagine if Obama had demanded that any university
| do an ideological purge of its conservative staff and
| students?
|
| Obama didn't need to demand it, the Universities went ahead
| and did it on their own.
|
| https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/the-last-four-years-
| wer...
| wnoise wrote:
| So not a comparable situation.
|
| In this intra-elite competition, the previous winners
| _might_ deserve to lose. The current regime and its
| allies absolutely cannot be allowed to be winners.
| FloorEgg wrote:
| Yes it does sound authoritarian. Thank you for answering my
| question in good faith.
|
| I am noticing a pattern; whenever I ask clarifying
| questions on hacker news threads regarding politically
| charged topics, most people assume least-respectful
| interpretation of my questions and heavily downvote them.
| As someone who is curious and genuinely trying to
| understand what's going on (I am here instead of other
| social media because I am looking for nuance, analysis,
| details, etc), it's really frustrating and disappointing
| when I am attacked for asking questions.
|
| So thank you, again, for engaging in my question
| constructively.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| these types of moves wouldn't be possible in the first place if
| these institutions hadn't spent decades burning their own
| credibility. They even mention Alzheimer's research in this
| post, something that has literally wasted billions of taxpayer
| dollars due to an academic cartel shutting down anybody trying
| to expose the fact that they were completely wrong about
| amyloid plaques
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if these institutions hadn 't spent decades burning their
| own credibility_
|
| They burned their credibility among those with whom they
| never needed it in the first place. Harvard as a taxpayer-
| funded institution is oxymoronic. Return it to an elite
| institution that the President can commend in private and
| mock at a rally in rural Kentucky or whatnot.
| derektank wrote:
| >They burned their credibility among those with whom they
| never needed it in the first place.
|
| I think universities should probably be concerned with
| their credibility among democratically elected political
| representatives if they are going to be accepting public
| funds. If the university wants to forgo federal grants,
| then yes, they don't require any credibility with anyone
| but academia and their donors, and more power to them.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _universities should probably be concerned with their
| credibility among democratically elected political
| representatives if they are going to be accepting public
| funds_
|
| Agree. I don't think they should accept federal funds to
| the extent that they do. Maybe it's time for elite
| institutions to get past the 70s camp era and start
| behaving (and wielding the power of) being elite.
| kelipso wrote:
| It's current year. They might hobble along for a few
| years without federal funding but they need federal
| funding to keep their academic reputation and be elite
| institutions.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _they need federal funding to keep their academic
| reputation and be elite institutions_
|
| Why? The funding chased their reputations during the
| world wars. There are plenty of ways of collaborating on
| expensive research facilities with the federal government
| while keeping a boundary between church and state within
| the elite halls.
| esrauch wrote:
| > wrong about amyloid plaques
|
| Sorry... you think that Trump is doing this because of
| suppression of dissent about amyloid plaques?
| ren_engineer wrote:
| no, but there would be much more push back against this
| type of action if Harvard and other universities didn't
| alienate a large chunk of the population. Why should the
| taxpayers fund places that openly admit to decades of
| racial discrimination in admissions
|
| the institutions have already failed their intended
| purpose, as shown by the research fraud. Propping them up
| with tax dollars because of nostalgia over the name brand
| is pointless
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _there would be much more push back against this type
| of action if Harvard and other universities didn 't
| alienate a large chunk of the population_
|
| Not in any meaningful way. And not in a way that would
| have mattered.
|
| The elite universities got into this hole by trying to
| court pedestrian approval. Trump is at war with the
| professional managerial class, _not_ the elites.
| Harvard's brand remains unimpeached among the latter.
| Return to serving that group and ignore the broader
| population.
| fitsumbelay wrote:
| FYI habeas corpus has been under attack by GOP administrations
| for nearly a quarter of a century -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_St...
| squigz wrote:
| > the more they will accelerate down a path where there is no
| coming back from.
|
| Why do you say this? At practically every point in history
| where a government or dictator goes too far, we've come back
| from it.
| wutwutwat wrote:
| Everyone recovers from a sickness. Until they don't.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Sure... As a different government.
|
| I assume parent is talking about the functional end of this
| iteration of the United States as a political entity.
| mcphage wrote:
| > we've come back from it
|
| We as a species have come back from it, yes. But generally
| after millions of victims are killed, and what is left over
| is very different than what existed prior.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| There are many points in history where a dictator made their
| country permanently worse. Argentina was once among the
| wealthiest democracies in the world, until a dictator seized
| power in 1930 - it took 53 years to restore democratic
| governance and their economy still isn't back on track.
| kccoder wrote:
| > At practically every point in history where a government or
| dictator goes too far, we've come back from it.
|
| Not everyone.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Harvard can do whatever they want. They can also not get
| taxpayer funding for it.
| Whoppertime wrote:
| It seems like the government has a soft Monopsony. There are many
| universities willing to sell research, but the government is the
| biggest buyer and controls the research grant market
| riskassessment wrote:
| This isn't close to a monopsony but it's more directionally
| correct than it is wrong. Keep in mind research institutes can
| be funded by private foundations, state and local governments,
| industry (e.g. pharma), venture, or even foreign governments.
| The federal government is undoubtedly the largest buyer though.
| I do think there are other motivations to rely primarily on
| federal grants beyond number of dollars. In particular, funding
| sources other than federal grant money is often looked down on
| from an academic prestige perspective. Until now federal money
| came with very few strings attached compared to the perceived
| loss of objectivity that could occur when receiving money from
| other sources. The current situation may alter or relax the
| prevailing view on which sources of research money are
| perceived of as potentially compromising.
| jltsiren wrote:
| Universities don't sell or do research. They provide
| facilities, equipment, services, and sometimes funding for
| research. The actual research is done by individuals, who are
| nominally employed by the university but largely independent
| from it. If a researcher doesn't like a particular university,
| they can usually take their funding and projects to another
| university.
|
| When grants are revoked for political reasons, it affects
| individuals who happen to be affiliated with the university
| more than the university itself. And it particularly affects
| people doing STEM research, because humanities and social
| sciences receive much less external funding. If the decline in
| public funding is permanent, it makes humanities and social
| sciences relatively stronger within the university. They are
| more viable without public subsidies than the more expensive
| STEM fields.
| jsbg wrote:
| Anyone whose research is profitable is free to work for a
| private entity. The government is a "monopsony" in "buying"
| unprofitable research the same way it's a "monopsony"
| subsidizing any industry that would otherwise fail in a free
| market. That is not typically how the concept of monopsony is
| meant.
| mlhpdx wrote:
| Scathing, and wonderfully so.
| bretpiatt wrote:
| With their endowment above $50 billion, combined with Federal
| plus Non-Federal sponsored revenue at 16% of operating budget, it
| makes sense to me they just forgo Federal funds and operate
| independently.
|
| If all 16% is canceled, then they'd need to draw an additional $1
| billion per year from endowment at current budget levels.
|
| That would put them above 7% draw so potentially unsustainable
| for perpetuity, historically they've averaged 11% returns though,
| so if past performance is a predictor of future, they can cover
| 100% of Federal gap and still grow the endowment annually with no
| new donations.
| gruez wrote:
| This article lists out why it's not good of an idea as you
| think.
|
| >Universities' endowments are not as much help as their
| billion-dollar valuations would suggest. For a start, much of
| the money is reserved for a particular purpose, funding a
| specific professorship or research centre, say. Legal covenants
| often prevent it from being diverted for other purposes. In any
| case, the income from an endowment is typically used to fund a
| big share of a university's operating costs. Eat into the
| principal and you eat into that revenue stream.
|
| >What is more, eating into the principal is difficult. Many
| endowments, in search of higher income, have invested heavily
| in illiquid assets, such as private equity, property and
| venture capital. That is a reasonable strategy for institutions
| that plan to be around for centuries, but makes it far harder
| to sell assets to cover a sudden budgetary shortfall. And with
| markets in turmoil, prices of liquid assets such as stocks and
| government bonds have gyrated in recent days. Endowments that
| "decapitalise" now would risk crystallising big losses.
|
| More worrying is the fact that the federal government can
| inflict even more harm aside from cutting off federal funding:
|
| >the Trump administration has many other ways to inflict
| financial pain on universities apart from withholding research
| funding. It could make it harder for students to tap the
| government's financial-aid programmes. It could issue fewer
| visas to foreign students, who tend to pay full tuition. With
| Congress's help, it could amend tax laws in ways that would
| hurt universities.
|
| https://archive.is/siUqm
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| if a $50,000,000,000 endowment can not be used to smooth
| things over in times of need or turbulence then the endowment
| managers need to make changes.
|
| You can not possibly convince me that Harvard's endowment
| doesn't trivially have one year of liquidity in it.
|
| I'm sure it's not structured to handle a 7% annual draw down
| for the next 30 years. But it's got plenty of time to
| restructure if needed.
| crazygringo wrote:
| The point is, it's eating your seed corn.
|
| Spending a billion of it is not just spending a billion.
| It's spending the many billions it was meant to provide, in
| interest, over the next decades.
|
| It's extraordinarily expensive to spend it directly, as
| opposed to spending the income it generates.
|
| You can certainly do it, in a true emergency. But you
| certainly don't want to make a habit of it.
| davorak wrote:
| > You can certainly do it, in a true emergency.
|
| This seems to qualify for many people though. Less pain
| than complying in many minds I am sure.
| empath75 wrote:
| > The point is, it's eating your seed corn.
|
| I've seen arguments of this general shape and form many
| times about this, and yes, this is true. In general,
| Harvard should not spend down it's endowment when it has
| other sources of revenue.
|
| I think the issue here is that this _is_ an emergency.
| Harvard should consider that Federal money gone for the
| near future and spend and plan to spend as if they will
| not have it. There is no point in them continuing to
| exist as an institution if they accede to these absurd
| demands.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| > _You can certainly do it, in a true emergency. But you
| certainly don 't want to make a habit of it._
|
| Harvard's endowment returned 9.6% last year, growing the
| total by $2.5 billion. In the previous year, the
| endowment returned 2.9%, though the total endowment
| decreased as the gain was offset by contributions to
| operating expenses. [0]
|
| In other words, Harvard already operates somewhat from
| their endowment, and can realize net endowment gains in
| spite of that.
|
| [0] https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2024/10/financial-
| report-fis...
| gruez wrote:
| >In other words, Harvard already operates somewhat from
| their endowment, and can realize net endowment gains in
| spite of that.
|
| The argument isn't that Harvard should never draw from
| its endowment, like it's saving for retirement or
| something. The argument is that they shouldn't raid
| endowments by doing additional withdraws to fund the
| current shortfall.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| > the many billions it was meant to provide, in interest
|
| THATS WHAT WHAT THE FIFTY BILLION IS
|
| It's a war chest that has been carefully cultivated over
| decades. The fifty billion is the result of a hundred
| years of investment and management.
|
| If it can't be spent now then when the fuck exactly can
| it be spent? In 200 years you'd still be saying "this is
| the seed corn for tomorrow!!"
|
| I'm not saying burn it down to zero. But the whole
| fucking point of an endowment is to provide stability
| during trying times. If you can't use the interest that
| has been accumulated now then when the fuck can you??
| crazygringo wrote:
| No. You misunderstand endowments.
|
| Their _principal_ is not intended to be spent, ever. The
| point of an endowment is _not_ to "provide stability
| during trying times".
|
| The point is to spend the interest that it generates, in
| normal times, in perpetuity. Which Harvard already does
| and has always done. Interest from their endowment is
| already a large part of their revenue. That's what the
| endowment is for.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 's eating your seed corn_
|
| Paraphrasing J. P. Morgan, the man, reassuring a banker
| in the Panic of 1907 concerned about having to dip into
| his reserves to pay out depositors: "what for are
| reserves if not times like these."
|
| Eat the seed corn. Fight. Then raise unencumbered
| donations from the billionaires whose balls haven't
| fallen off. If Harvard plays this correctly, they could
| become one of the flag bearers of the legal and financial
| resistance to Trump.
| xienze wrote:
| > The point is, it's eating your seed corn.
|
| How much is "enough" money to hoard in an endowment
| though? We hear lots of arguments about how the concept
| of a billionaire is itself obscene, why can't we apply to
| same logic to institutions? E.g. much like people say
| "billionaires shouldn't exist", perhaps endowments over
| some similarly arbitrary value shouldn't exist either.
| pc86 wrote:
| Not to mention all those legal covenants have another party
| to them - they're not written in stone. I'm sure a good
| number of them would be willing to considering loosening
| legal restrictions if it would really help.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Endowments have come from people over the entire history
| of the institution. The vast majority of the endowers are
| likely deceased and won't be able to agree to change the
| terms of their endowment.
| Finnucane wrote:
| To some degree it already has been. After the economic
| genius Larry Summers paid for the Allston campus expansion
| with some dodgy loans that blew up in their faces during
| the 2008-9 financial crisis, there was some attempt to
| reform the endowment, back off some risky investments, and
| build up more of a free-cash emergency fund. This actually
| paid off during the Covid lockdowns, which the university
| was able to weather without too much disruption.
|
| The other oddity of Harvard's endowment is that each school
| at the university basically has it's own fund--so that for
| instance, the Business school and the Law school don't have
| to worry about money the same way that FAS (the main
| undergraduate school) does.
| beerandt wrote:
| They made a big fuss a few years ago about what I read imo
| as over investing in foreign farm land, esp south America
| and Africa. Which seems to have completely flopped, if not
| yet realized.
|
| At this point, you really do have to question whether each
| university hire was merit based or not, including the fund
| managers.
| kjellsbells wrote:
| I don't know that making a bad investment makes them
| terrible fund managers, just as making a good one would
| not make them brilliant. Don't you need a string of data
| points?
|
| If you are going to claim that they were not hired on
| merit, and that they are bad investment managers, you'll
| need to provide a lot more evidence on both points,
| rather than a "just asking questions" post on HN.
| Otherwise, it's just snark and not in keeping with HN's
| ethos.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| >...much of the money is reserved for a particular purpose
|
| I would assume that a tax on an endowment would be like a
| capital gains tax, i.e., taxed on the investment growth. Is
| the growth 'reserved for a particular purpose'?
| gruez wrote:
| It's reserved because the donation was earmarked for a
| specific purpose (eg. a business program or whatever), not
| because they reserved 30% on tax owing.
|
| >Is the growth 'reserved for a particular purpose'?
|
| It's probably safe to assume donors are competent enough
| that such glaring loopholes don't exist. After all, the
| concept of endowments being used as long term savings,
| rather than spent immediately, isn't exactly a new concept.
| Failing to take this into account would mean any earmarks
| are void after a few decades.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| He's not gonna be happy they can operate financially without
| his assent
| bilbo0s wrote:
| He still controls the congress, the white house and the
| supreme court. So he could potentially pull a completely
| illegal fast one and freeze their accounts. Since rule of law
| seems on fairly shaky ground right now in any case.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _he could potentially pull a completely illegal fast one
| and freeze their accounts_
|
| Harvard (and most institutions and powerful individuals)
| would be smart to maintain liquid assets and a bank account
| outside America's control.
| outer_web wrote:
| Maybe their endowment is held in treasurys they should
| start selling off...
| bilbo0s wrote:
| LOL
|
| I like the way you think!
| bilbo0s wrote:
| This is true, and they have likely been accelerating the
| arrangements they already had for a while now. At the
| same time however, getting 50 billion in assets into
| various European jurisdictions is not at all easy. I'd
| estimate Trump could cut off 70-90 percent of what
| Harvard has to work with.
|
| Alumni will need to come through for continuing
| operations if the worst does happen. And I'm certain
| Harvard has put some thought into that contingency as
| well.
| bgarbiak wrote:
| Trump can make that illegal in no time. ,,No foreign
| funds" is a well known method of fighting opposition,
| tried and tested in many soft regimes (looking for a
| recent example, Hungary comes to mind).
| chairmansteve wrote:
| Bitcoin!
| colechristensen wrote:
| >a bank account outside America's control
|
| There really isn't such a thing if you want to do
| business in America. If you're in the US and doing
| business with a bank, the courts can order that bank to
| do things or face isolation from the entire financial
| system.
| Boldened15 wrote:
| Yeah I'm no expert in financial systems but since the
| money ultimately needs to be spent in the U.S. it doesn't
| seem that important whether the funds are frozen in the
| U.S. or locked away overseas and can't be transferred in
| for the next ~4 years.
| colechristensen wrote:
| It's much more than that, foreign banks will comply with
| US court orders, it's not just a blockade.
|
| US courts shut down a series of Swiss banks that were
| trying to hide American's assets behind the swiss banking
| secrecy laws while also doing business on American soil
| (just having bank employees in the country did it).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _since the money ultimately needs to be spent in the
| U.S. it doesn 't seem that important whether the funds
| are frozen in the U.S._
|
| Of course it does. The hypothetical we're considering is
| the administration illegally freezing bank accounts. You
| don't need something legally impenetrable. Just
| complicated enough that it slows down the goons while you
| fight them in court.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _There really isn 't such a thing if you want to do
| business in America_
|
| There are to varying extents. You want a country that
| isn't aligned with or dependent on America, but also
| isn't its adversary. (And which has a good banking
| system.) That list was classically Turkey, the UAE and
| Switzerland. Today I'd add India, Qatar, Canada and
| Brazil and remove Switzerland.
| alabastervlog wrote:
| He may issue an EO against them similar to the ones he's
| successfully used to bring major law firms he doesn't like
| to heel: ban consideration of former Harvard employees (...
| maybe also graduates?) for Federal jobs, revoke clearances
| held by anyone employed by Harvard, and ban them from
| Federal property. Maybe with some other creative terms
| thrown in to mess with universities in particular.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| That is always a risk of working for the government. Your
| job exists more or less at the whims of the currently
| governing administration.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| > _Your job exists more or less at the whims of the
| currently governing administration._
|
| Perhaps in theory, but not in practice as a historical
| norm. And, certainly not for "standard" non-appointed,
| bureaucratic roles.
|
| It's important that we don't normalize what we're seeing
| here, in terms of quality or degree.
| ajross wrote:
| That has _essentially never_ been a risk for a non-
| appointed government employee in the United States of
| America, at least for the past century or so. We Don 't
| Politicize the Bureaucracy. And that was at least in part
| the secret sauce to our generational success, that we
| could immunize the workings of the government from the
| pique and emotion of its leadership.
|
| Or we didn't. Now we do. Kinda sucks.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Well this was advice my father (an academic and lifelong
| straight ticket Democrat) gave me decades ago. So it was
| nothing specific to the current administration.
| kjellsbells wrote:
| The difference is that the people affected by whim were,
| by design, only supposed to be the political appointees,
| not the civil service rank and file. Those jobs existed
| for as long as Congress decided that they produced useful
| results for the American people. Positions could be
| eliminated by virtue of Congress deciding that a shift in
| policy was needed, eg fewer Kremlinologists after 1989,
| but that is not a whim, that is a result of debate.
|
| The current administration is making all positions
| political, and in doing so, performing an end run around
| the legislative branch.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Since ~1885 and the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act: h
| ttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendleton_Civil_Service_Re
| fo...
|
| Submitted some historical breadcrumbs here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43686221
| miley_cyrus wrote:
| "We Don't Politicize the Bureaucracy." That's good for a
| laugh.
|
| You want to argue that Joe Biden didn't weaponize every
| branch of the bureaucracy against Republicans?
| const_cast wrote:
| > You want to argue that Joe Biden didn't weaponize every
| branch of the bureaucracy against Republicans?
|
| He didn't. I don't know why you guys think he did. A lot
| of those agencies, like the Justice Department, act
| independently.
|
| It's not like any Republicans were jailed. This is
| starting to seem less like a legitimate take, and more
| like a strange fetish for persecution.
|
| For the record, if people like President Trump want to no
| longer be under the eye of Justice, they should stop
| doing illegal things. It seems every other American
| citizen has figured that out. It is shameful our own
| president has not.
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| Joe Biden did nothing remotely comparable to what Trump
| is doing now.
|
| And unlike Trump, Biden faced constant criticism from
| within his party. He would have faced outrage if he tried
| to, for example, cancel all federal grants containing the
| word "conservative" in them.
|
| Meanwhile we're heading towards a future where Trump can
| deport anyone he doesn't like to an El Salvadorian prison
| without so much as a trial, regardless of whether they
| broke any laws. Why doesn't this terrify people on the
| right?
| const_cast wrote:
| No, this is not the case. This is a recent and never
| before seen phenomenon. Please, do not try to downplay
| it. And, if you do, do not do it dishonestly.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _ban consideration of former Harvard employees (...
| maybe also graduates?) for Federal jobs_
|
| Oh, those federal jobs he's been DOGEing for the past
| weeks in an attempt to demotivate folks out of them?
|
| This administration's incoherence comes back to bite it
| in the ass again.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| They could also possibly fire some administrators. Not every
| vice-provost out there is strictly necessary.
|
| Just a few years ago, Harvard Crimson carried an op-ed
| complaining about the bloat:
|
| https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/11/29/anderson-burea...
| sandworm101 wrote:
| This is about lots more than money. Sure, Harvard can go
| without federal funds. Then comes federal tax breaks. Then
| Harvard's ability to recruit foreign students (no visas, no
| foreign students/professors). After that comes the really
| draconian stuff like the fed revoking clearances or not
| hiring/doing business with Harvard grads. Such things were once
| thought illegal but are now very much on the table. That is why
| Harvard needs to win the money fight no matter the numbers.
| morkalork wrote:
| Right, money is just the first and most obvious cudgel. Does
| Harvard have any biomedical labs that require federal
| approval to handle hazardous materials? That could be delayed
| or revoked. Do they file taxes? They could face an audit.
| There's no shortage of painpoints an organization that large
| has exposed to an unethical government.
| __jl__ wrote:
| I think the 9 billion is very misleading. More than half goes
| to hospitals affiliated with Harvard. I am not sure but I don't
| think they get anything from the endowment. The impact of
| loosing this money would be very uneven across different parts
| of the university and hospitals affiliated with it.
|
| The faculty of arts and science would be fine. Yes, some cuts,
| a hiring freeze etc. The med school and public health school
| would feel a big impact. They employ so many people on "soft
| money" through grants including many faculty members.
|
| The hospitals are a different story and I am not sure why they
| are even lumped together.
| tootie wrote:
| Yeah this isn't purely a question of Harvard's P&L being
| dependent on subsidies. The money in question is grants
| attached to specific practices or research. The money isn't
| just gratuity for Harvard being so great, it's awarded for
| specific objectives that Harvard was deemed capable of
| delivering. Cutting off the money isn't going to hurt
| Harvard, it's going to stop all the programs the grants were
| funding.
| fma wrote:
| Harvard is probably thinking they just need to draw the $1
| billion extra for another 4 years. Unless, Trump runs for a 3rd
| time which he has floated. If that happens then I think
| everyone's just screwed.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| With an overbearingly powerful executive like the federal US
| executive you can come up with so many ways to fuck with
| companies or institutions like this one beyond not giving
| them money.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| I'm sure he's got plans to issue an executive order declaring
| all of the votes against him null and void because they
| weren't cast and counted within 4 hours of each other on
| election day.
| robocat wrote:
| Republicans Are Floating Plans To Raise the Endowment Tax.
| Here's What You Need To Know :
| https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/2/11/increasing-endo...
|
| Proposed College Endowment Tax Hike: What to Know :
| https://thecollegeinvestor.com/52851/proposed-college-endowm...
| College endowments are typically tax-exempt, but a 2017 law
| imposed a 1.4% tax on investment income for a small group of
| wealthy private universities. A new proposal seeks to increase
| the endowment tax rate to 14%
|
| Other article: proposing an 8.6 percent tax
| hike
|
| When hacking the government rules is used against you.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| LoL - why it makes any sense to do this for universities and
| not billionaires is beyond me, but I'm sure half the country
| can explain it to me like I'm 5.
| pqtyw wrote:
| Doesn't this tax only apply to "net investment
| income"/realized gains? Billionaires technically already
| have to pay it at a higher rate. And well they generally
| do? I mean when they personally actually sell stock and or
| receive dividends and interest.
| peterbecich wrote:
| Agreed. For the revenue tax activists want from
| billionaires, it would necessitate a wealth tax, which I
| believe is unconstitutional. The non-profit tax exemption
| fight is about "income taxes" which billionaires already
| have to pay (but avoid). So it is an apples-to-oranges
| comparison.
| nrclark wrote:
| what is unconstitutional about a wealth tax?
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It's not totally clear if it would be but here's a
| summary: https://city-countyobserver.com/the-
| constitutionality-of-a-w...
| peterbecich wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer but my reasoning is this:
|
| - as far as I know, double taxation by any given entity
| (Federal Gov) is unconstitutional
|
| - a given dollar is taxed once as income. A federal
| wealth tax on the remainder of that dollar would be
| double taxation.
|
| That does not prohibit the Federal Gov from taxing once,
| and your residential state from taxing you a second time.
|
| There are other arguments about "direct taxation" I don't
| fully understand.
| triceratops wrote:
| > it would necessitate a wealth tax, which I believe is
| unconstitutional
|
| I take it you haven't heard of property taxes.
| peterbecich wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer but I do not consider a property tax to
| be the same thing as a wealth tax.
|
| If I own a house or condominium in San Francisco, at a
| fundamental level I do not own the land or space the
| residence is sitting on. "Ownership" is basically a lease
| of the parcel from the city. The house structure is an
| improvement on leased land; this ties the property tax
| calculation to the value of the structure. The property
| tax is the rent on the land/space. I believe this is the
| constitutional justification for property taxes (no
| opposition from me).
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > If I own a house or condominium in San Francisco, at a
| fundamental level I do not own the land or space the
| residence is sitting on. "Ownership" is basically a lease
| of the parcel from the city.
|
| It's interesting to me that medieval European peasants
| "renting" the land they farmed had much stronger
| ownership rights than Americans who "own" land do today.
|
| > I believe this is the constitutional justification for
| property taxes
|
| It isn't. The constitutional justification for property
| taxes is that they're assessed by the states, not by the
| federal government.
|
| The federal government is free to assess property taxes
| too, except that it must apportion them between the
| states: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/ar
| tI-S9-C4-1/...
|
| > An 1861 federal tax on real property illustrates how
| the rule of apportionment operates. Congress enacted a
| direct tax of $20 million. After apportioning the direct
| tax among the states, territories, and the District of
| Columbia, the State of New York was liable for the
| largest portion of the tax [...]
|
| What this meant was that the federal government delegated
| tax quotas to the states and the states were responsible
| for collecting them as they saw fit.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| The Supreme Court explicitly allowed property taxes in
| Pollock decision. They haven't for wealth taxes (they
| still might allow it but they also might not).
| andoando wrote:
| Most of the wealth being in stock is really tricky. You
| can't really tax stock ownership, but at the same time
| stock can be leveraged against business deals (Musk for
| example bought Twitter with largely stock, without having
| to sell it first and therefore being subject to tax), and
| you can take out loans with stock as collateral.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| It's not that tricky. All you have to do is make it a
| taxable event to collateralize stock.
| phkahler wrote:
| How? That makes little sense to me from an implementation
| standpoint.
| gaze wrote:
| if you hate universities it makes obvious sense
| palmotea wrote:
| >> College endowments are typically tax-exempt, but a 2017
| law imposed a 1.4% tax on investment income for a small
| group of wealthy private universities.
|
| > LoL - why it makes any sense to do this for universities
| and not billionaires is beyond me, but I'm sure half the
| country can explain it to me like I'm 5.
|
| Because they already do it for billionaires: unlike
| university endowments, billionaire investment income is not
| tax-exempt by default, it's already subject to income tax
| [1].
|
| [1] At least theoretically, ignoring the loopholes and tax-
| dodges billionaires can take advantage of with literal
| armies of accountants.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| ... or churches
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Billionaires pay 37% or 20% on their investment gains,
| can't really explain it to a 5 year old because congress
| and the IRS make it complex.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| They don't pay anywhere close to that, there are tons of
| tricks to avoid paying that % on gains and the more money
| you have the more leeway for loopholes.
|
| Very relevant in startup ecosystem as well (look up
| exchange funds, opportunity zones etc.)
| WalterBright wrote:
| 40% of Federal income tax revenue comes from the top 1%.
| triceratops wrote:
| What percent of all income do they make?
|
| Edit: it's an honest question. Maybe the top 1% paying
| 40% of all income taxes is too much tax. Maybe it's not
| enough. Without knowing how much of all the income they
| make it's a meaningless number.
| rayiner wrote:
| 20%. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/income-share-
| top-1-before...
| crmd wrote:
| According to the Tax Foundation[1], for tax year 2021,
| the top 1% of U.S. earners--those with an adjusted gross
| income (AGI) of $682,577 or more--accounted for 26.3% of
| total AGI and paid 45.8% of all federal income taxes.
|
| My personal opinion is that income tax should be more
| progressive, but I know that plenty of smart people
| disagree on that.
|
| [1] https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-
| federal-in...
| caslon wrote:
| The top 1% of people make 20.7% of the country's income.
| Given progressive tax rates, they should be paying a lot
| more than 40% of Federal income tax revenue, but rates
| don't scale enough, and aren't lax enough on other
| classes.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Can you explain your reasoning behind "they should be
| paying a lot more"? I kept hearing that they didn't pay
| their "fair share" when in fact it appears they pay
| double. It just seems like whatever they actually pay,
| measured in dollars or as a percentage, will always be
| widely regarded as not enough.
| stolati wrote:
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/fact-check-
| richest-1...
| Jabbles wrote:
| This conversation is about billionaires, not the top 1%.
| rurp wrote:
| Imagine how much federal revenue would increase if that
| 1% paid the same effective rate as say a typical plumber,
| rather than the <10% they currently pay. That might
| actually put a dent in the trillions of dollars this
| congress is about to add to the national debt.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Politics of resentment where elite colleges and
| universities are unjust scams and billionaires are just the
| pinnacle of self actualization.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Billionaires do pay income tax on investment income.
| sunflowerfly wrote:
| Not at rates anywhere near tax rates on wages of a middle
| class worker.
| triceratops wrote:
| If they sell and incur capital gains. But they have so
| many better alternatives than you or me. And if they do
| incur capital gains they pay the same tax rate (or maybe
| 5 basis points higher, depending on your income) as you
| or me.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Billionaires do not get a tax exemption
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Eh, colleges were originally religious institutions. (Harvard
| was founded to train clergy [1].)
|
| Converting to Harvard Church is about the least shenanigany
| thing I could think of in this tale.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harvard_University
| bitcoin_anon wrote:
| I agree. Also, the quality and independence of the research
| will improve when it is funded outside of government influence.
| jmye wrote:
| Which is, of course, why the internet is a spectacular
| failure and SpaceX is our best chance to ever put a man on
| the moon, and polio is still ravaging the country. Great
| point.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| those endowments, especially for the Ivy League schools, aren't
| liquid at all. They'd take a massive haircut if they had to
| start pulling funds from it
| Marsymars wrote:
| Presumably they could go to a large bank and make a deal so
| that they only have to take a relatively small haircut by
| getting a loan to be paid back from endowment interest.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| If this is the case then they really are not for the benefit
| of students?
| paulpauper wrote:
| 80% of the endowment funds are heavily restricted as per donor
| requests and cannot be used unconditionally.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Could you give us some of these restrictions? This seems like
| a BS excuse to not support the students.
| janalsncm wrote:
| This might be true for Harvard, but I don't think free speech
| should only be for those who can afford it. I know my school
| couldn't if the government came knocking.
| silexia wrote:
| Harvard is free to say whatever it wants and operate without
| government funds. A shocking idea may be for a school to
| actually use the tuition paid by students to educate them.
|
| This is forced speech for all those of us who disagree with
| Harvard's politics and yet have our tax dollars sent to
| support it anyways.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Okay, disband all of CBP and then we can talk.
| ericjmorey wrote:
| 1st Amendment is more important than you not liking a
| specific spending of government funds.
| silexia wrote:
| The first amendment is not being harmed here, it is being
| helped.
|
| My first amendment right not to be forced to support
| causes I disagree with is being harmed. I don't want my
| tax dollars going to support discrimination against
| Asians and others.
|
| Harvard still has full free speech rights and can say
| anything it wishes, as can it's employees and students. I
| just don't want to be forced to pay for them to do it.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| You have a very strange idea of how government works.
|
| You don't get a veto on all speech from anyone who
| receives funds from the public purse, and it's not a
| First Amendment issue that you don't.
|
| That's such an incredibly odd premise; where do you get
| that idea from?
| const_cast wrote:
| It's conservative doublespeak in regards to free speech
| and small government we've been seeing for the past 10
| years.
|
| By free speech, they mean the lack thereof. By small
| government, they mean a monarch.
| gambiting wrote:
| You don't need the whole bloated government if you just
| have one guy at the top making all the decisions /s
| malfist wrote:
| "Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware
| of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their
| remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are
| amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is
| obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in
| words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even
| like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous
| reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their
| interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since
| they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to
| intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely,
| they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by
| some phrase that the time for argument is past"
|
| - Jean-Paul Sartre
| jmye wrote:
| > My first amendment right not to be forced to support
| causes I disagree with is being harmed.
|
| Fascinating. Do I have a similar right to stop paying
| taxes, because I don't support the things the President
| is saying, or the causes Mike Johnston is adding to the
| budget?
| bigbadfeline wrote:
| > My first amendment right not to be forced to support
| causes I disagree with is being harmed. I don't want my
| tax dollars going to support discrimination against
| Asians and others.
|
| This is absolutely NOT what the 1st amendment is about,
| you are confusing tax and speech but they are treated
| separately in the Constitution.
|
| The reason for that is simple, if every taxpayer could
| deny the funding of everything they didn't agree with,
| we'd have a very different Constitution. The ability to
| FULLY defund something YOU don't agree with requires the
| powers of a king... If you scale that ambition back a
| little and ask only for the power to decide where YOUR
| own money goes, you'd be speaking of something other than
| a tax because this isn't the way taxes work.
|
| I'm not explaining this because I see much good coming
| out of Harvard, in fact I don't, but that's a different
| conversation. Both political parties, as well as certain
| private organizations have their hands deep in students'
| brains - it's the ultimate cookie jar after all. The real
| problem is the attempt to legitimize overt government
| meddling in the "cookie jar" instead of focusing on
| transparency and examination of the current forces
| involved in that process.
|
| BTW can you elaborate on your assertion about
| "discrimination against Asians"? Neither the government
| letter nor Harvard's response mention Asians! Were you
| trying to comment on another post? Maybe something about
| the tariffs?
| jakeydus wrote:
| That's just how government works, buddy. I disagree with my
| tax dollars being spent to shoot wild horses and fund
| Lockheed-Martin, but here we are. It's not forced speech,
| because you have representatives who (in a working system)
| you could ask to fight against tax dollars being spent on
| something you dislike. You have a voice, you just don't get
| to have _the only voice_.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| That's a very odd perspective.
|
| Could you explain how government research funding
| constitutes forced speech?
|
| If an individual who receives a government tax credit (say
| EITC) speaks out contrary to your politics, is the
| government allowed to withhold that credit too?
| tacticalturtle wrote:
| I posted this deep in another part of this discussion - but
| the majority of the money being discussed here isn't really
| for Harvard or educating its students - the largest portion
| are for NIH grants funding to Boston area hospitals, most
| of which have affiliations with Harvard Medical School.
|
| > The Crimson analyzed the proposed Trump administration
| funding cuts and estimated that the five hospitals' multi-
| year commitment from the NIH is over $6.2 billion and the
| University's multi-year federal research funding exceeds
| $2.7 billion.
|
| https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/4/funding-
| review-h...
|
| I'm sure that you have legitimate issues with politics at
| Harvard, but penalizing a number of independent non-profits
| that serve the community because they associate with a
| University that the administration disagrees with also
| seems to be forcing speech.
| iAMkenough wrote:
| Just watch what happens when they exercise their
| Constiutional right to "say whatever it wants."
|
| Stephen Miller made it clear this morning: "Under this
| country, under this administration, under President Trump,
| people who hate America, who threaten our citizens, who
| rape, who murder, and who support those who rape and murder
| are going to be ejected from this country."
|
| If the government decides you "hate America" or your
| business supports some hypothetical rapist/murderer they
| imagined, you're going to end up ejected from this country
| without due process.
| jakeydus wrote:
| They're absolutely teeing up to be able to deport whoever
| they want. Reasonable people should be (and are) very
| afraid.
| rurp wrote:
| Somehow I doubt you would apply these same principles to
| someone who doesn't believe in police and objects to their
| taxes being used to fund them.
| benrapscallion wrote:
| Harvard affiliated hospitals are dependent on NIH funding for
| survival. Wonder if they are included in the scope of this.
| ghusto wrote:
| This is the only correct response, but I don't think I'm being
| overly cynical in thinking they're being opportunistic either.
|
| They're quite happy to turn a blind eye to unfashionable
| political views being silenced, so there's a pinch of hypocrisy
| in making such a show of standing for openness.
|
| All in all though, I'm happy to see this.
| stemlord wrote:
| It's my understanding that the issue is not that they're
| "espousing the right views" but rather that they have the
| constitutional right as a private institution to espouse
| whatever views their students and faculty want under the first
| amendment.
| devsda wrote:
| Trump won the popular vote, which means there's a good chance
| that there are some % of those students and faculty who agree
| with his views on certain topics?
|
| Google doesn't show any results for a university, professor
| or student groups voicing support for this administrations
| policies. Is there an explanation for this ?
|
| Do they not exist or do they just prefer not to express
| themselves ?
|
| Edit: According to this link[1] from another thread, his
| support base could be anywhere between 2.5% and 22.5%. That
| explains a lot.
|
| 1. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/5/22/faculty-
| survey-...
| darioush wrote:
| right, freedom of speech is free as long as it agrees with the
| viewpoint of who's in power. similar to how history is written
| by victors but this part is conveniently ignored. it's just
| facts in the open marketplace of ideas yay!
| legitster wrote:
| Even if Harvard _wanted_ to comply with the government letter, it
| 's full of so many non-sequiturs and self-conflictions that it
| reads more like a piece of satire:
|
| > The University must immediately shutter all diversity, equity,
| and inclusion (DEI) programs, offices, committees, positions, and
| initiatives, under whatever name, and stop all DEI-based
| policies, including DEI-based disciplinary or speech control
| policies, under whatever name
|
| > Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity
| must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within
| that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity
|
| > In particular, Harvard must end support and recognition of
| those student groups or clubs that engaged in anti-Semitic
| activity since October 7th, 2023
|
| > Discipline at Harvard must include immediate intervention and
| stoppage of disruptions or deplatforming, including by the
| Harvard police when necessary to stop a disruption or
| deplatforming
|
| The letter is a complete joke. Giving it any sort of compliance
| would be giving validation to a set of rules that are literally
| impossible to follow by design. There is literally nothing
| Harvard could do to not be in trouble later.
|
| Also buried in the letter is this gem:
|
| > Harvard must implement a comprehensive mask ban with serious
| and immediate penalties for violation, not less than suspension.
|
| Keep in mind Harvard also runs a _medical school_!
|
| This is Maoist-style social reform through and through.
| kashunstva wrote:
| > Keep in mind Harvard also runs a medical school!
|
| Aseptic surgical procedures may soon go the way of vaccines.
| janalsncm wrote:
| Good. I think Harvard has faltered a bit recently with academic
| integrity scandals, but they are still well-respected overall.
| Them standing up for students is an important signal to other
| less high-profile schools that they can do the same.
| pjmlp wrote:
| As information, the current administration is doing similar
| demands to foreign universities, trying to impose the point of
| view of the world in a president we didn't vote for.
|
| Here is an article about the Trump administration demands to our
| universities.
|
| https://www-publico-pt.translate.goog/2025/04/11/ciencia/not...
| outside1234 wrote:
| I hope everyone is ready for a general strike because that time
| is coming up at us rapidly.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| General strike when >50% of those who voted _wanted_ this? What
| world are you living in?
|
| Edit: I stand corrected, 49.81%. It doesn't change the point
| much. Especially when that ~49% includes many "working
| class"[1] voters. Who's going to participate in this general
| strike? A bunch of office workers?
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-return-power-
| fueled-...
| outside1234 wrote:
| I suspect much less than 50% actually wanted legal residents
| of the United States disappeared to El Salvador.
|
| Also, research tells us that it only takes 3.5% to overthrow
| a government.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Also, research tells us that it only takes 3.5% to
| overthrow a government.
|
| You're describing a coup or revolution. Isn't that highly
| anti-democratic considering this president _just_ won an
| election? Why should the 50% be under the thumb of the
| 3.5%?
| kccoder wrote:
| > just won an election
|
| And just as just, violated his oath to the constitution.
| How long, precisely, should we allow him to violate his
| oath and our rights?
| plorkyeran wrote:
| 49.81% of the people who voted did so for Trump.
| pbreit wrote:
| Good for Harvard. As idiotic as many of its policies are, this is
| clearly government infringement of freedom and speech.
| Jsebast24 wrote:
| That's right. Infringement of freedom and speech should be left
| in the hands of government funded institutions like Harvard.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| There really is no incentive to compromise with the Trump Admin
| on anything. Even if you cave, they just go for more. You need to
| act like a cornered animal and not expect honest negotiation.
|
| OTOH if Trump admin WAS at all rational partners they could be
| extracting historic changes from these institutions. But they
| won't.
| kombine wrote:
| These people (not only MAGA) perverted the very meaning of
| antisemitism to the point that it means nothing today. I am
| saying that as someone who's lost a family member to Holocaust.
| When I hear someone mention antisemitism today, 90% of the time
| it is to punish someone's views critical of Israel.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Same, having descended from Holocaust survivors, what is
| happening in the U.S. and Palestine right now is chilling to me
| in its similarity.
| Latty wrote:
| Which is, of course, deeply antisemitic of the people claiming
| antisemitism when they are talking about only criticism of
| Israel, to equate all Jewish people with the Israeli state.
| settrans wrote:
| When I hear people criticize Israel today, 90% of the time it
| is from people who want to make sure Jews can't defend
| themselves against genocidal enemies by denying the Jewish
| people the right to self-determination.
|
| And 90% of the rest of the time, it is from people who
| selectively criticize Israel when they defend themselves, but
| stay suspiciously quiet when confronted with literal genocide
| and ethnic cleansing by Muslims.
|
| Where are the pro-Palestinian activists who are standing up for
| the Gazans who have the courage to risk their lives by
| protesting against Hamas?
| jsheard wrote:
| > Where are the pro-Palestinian activists who are standing up
| for the Gazans who have the courage to risk their lives by
| protesting against Hamas?
|
| If you can find me a western government or institution they
| should be protesting for actively collaborating with Hamas
| then I'll grant you that hypocrisy. They don't need to
| because it's already a federal crime to materially support
| Hamas in any way whatsoever.
| settrans wrote:
| If the Palestinians are risking their lives to protest
| against Hamas in Gaza, why can't the alleged pro-
| Palestinian protesters demonstrate in support of this
| viewpoint?
| arp242 wrote:
| When I was active on the Politics Stack Exchange site years ago
| I was "reported to the ADL" for merging the [jews] and
| [judaism] tags. Right out of the gate after I casually
| mentioned it in another discussion: not even a big fight about
| it. But the same person outright ignored the Trump-supporting
| holocaust denying user who harrassed a Jewish user with
| antisemitic slurs such (e.g. [1]).
|
| Sadly antisemitism obviously exists, and sadly some pro-
| Palestinian activists have veered off into antisemitism. But
| the selective outrage is hard to take serious.
|
| Remember, Caesar subjugated Gaul and killed or enslaved about a
| quarter of all Gauls in the process, to "protect" them from
| invading Germanic tribes. "Top kek", as I believe the old Latin
| saying goes.
|
| [1]: https://politics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3596 - I am the
| author of that, I deleted my account since in large party due
| to all of this
| greasegum wrote:
| It's just words, obviously contradicted by many of Harvard's
| recent actions, but all I can think is what a fucking lay-up. If
| only Columbia's administration had half a spine they would have
| responded similarly.
| bhouston wrote:
| > all I can think is what a fucking lay-up
|
| I am nervous about the US right now. So many cases are going to
| end up at the Supreme Court that is controlled by
| conservatives. It may not be the lay-up you think it is.
|
| Also what happens if Trump just decides to ignore a court loss
| as he did with the recent deportation of Kilmar Garcia?
| janalsncm wrote:
| I don't agree with Roberts but he isn't a hack. For what it's
| worth, he also went to Harvard.
| Loughla wrote:
| It will take a majority of states, and their military
| backing, forcefully overthrowing Trump.
|
| I really hate to be alarmist, but it does feel more and more
| that we're headed to massive, coordinated state against state
| violence.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| Good. Trump is simply trying to see what he can get away with and
| the answer as it turns out is a lot. Everyone need to stop
| capitulating to this nonsense. People, universities, companies,
| all of them.
| pbiggar wrote:
| In every single situation where "anti-semitism" is being called
| out, the thing they are calling "antisemitism" is students who
| advocate for an end the the occupation of Palestine by Israel,
| the US providing the bombs that are killing tens of thousands in
| Gaza, and the university complicity in Israel through investment
| and academic partnerships.
| jakedata wrote:
| Ooh, I am jealous. A close family member has been branded
| _egregious_ by various acting members of the current
| administration. I guess I am going to need to up my game if I
| want to be able to hold my head high at family gatherings.
| breadwinner wrote:
| Being anti-Israel should not be conflated with being antisemitic.
| After all, the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest
| warrant for Netanyahu for a reason.
|
| Trump is using "antisemitism" as cover for the imposition of
| authoritarianism. This comes from Putin's playbook. Putin used
| denazification as an excuse for invading Ukraine.
|
| Trump himself has espoused antisemitism from time to time, see
| below.
|
| John Kelly, Trump's former White House chief of staff, reiterated
| his assertion that Trump said, "Hitler did some good things,
| too," in a story published Tuesday in The New York Times.
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-said-hitler-did-...
|
| Donald Trump dabbles in Nazi allusions too often for it to be a
| coincidence. https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/21/politics/trump-nazi-
| allusions...
|
| Trump's re-election campaign that featured a symbol used in Nazi
| Germany. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53098439
|
| Trump's latest flirtation with Nazi symbolism draws criticism
| https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4677700-trumps-latest-...
|
| Trump campaign accused of T-shirt design with similarity to Nazi
| eagle
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/11/fac...
|
| Donald Trump's 'Star of David' Tweet About Hillary Clinton Posted
| Weeks Earlier on Racist Feed
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-...
|
| An order by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's office resulted in a
| purge of books critical of racism but preserved volumes defending
| white power. Two copies of "Mein Kampf" are still on the shelves
| but "Memorializing the Holocaust" was removed.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/us/politics/naval-academy...
| duxup wrote:
| From the feds documents they describe the federal government as
| thought police:
|
| >Viewpoint Diversity in Admissions and Hiring. By August 2025,
| the University shall commission an external party, which shall
| satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good
| faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership
| for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or
| teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse.
|
| Even ICE had a deleted tweet that makes it clear the thought
| police are active:
|
| https://i0.wp.com/www.techdirt.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/0...
| fortran77 wrote:
| The Federal government should have simply pulled the funding from
| Harvard, Colombia without any conditions, etc. Give the money to
| all the other schools that do research--especially public ones
| like UC Boulder or SUNY Stonybrook--and be done with them.
| clivestaples wrote:
| Likely I'm very naive. But here goes... It seems that taxpayers
| fund a lot of research. This research is very valuable and
| lucrative. It finds its way into the hands of those who know how
| to profit from it. The taxpayer is again screwed paying
| exorbitant prices for said breakthroughs. Insulin is one area of
| interest to me and it very much seems to be the case in the
| diabetes world.
|
| This was how NAFTA was sold. Move car manufacturing to Mexico and
| they will enjoy better living wages while we get more affordable
| cars. Except that I don't recall cars produced in Mexico ever
| getting more affordable. I'm sure corporate profits were great.
| Should probably look into this someday and see if my perception
| is correct.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Between 1935 and today car price inflation is at 2.41% per year
| while general inflation is 3.56%. You may have not noticed.
| Since free trade it's been less than 2%.
|
| You may not have noticed but it happened.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Keep in mind labor is something like 10%-15% of the cost of a
| new car so even if you cut that down by 80%, including
| transport, and ignored recouping capital cost to actually move
| the production lines then you'd still need to move the
| production in less than 2 years to actually see the price
| decrease rather than "not move up as fast" at 3% car price
| inflation of the early 90s. Interestingly there was a dip in
| the price increase rate of cars at the end of the 90s
| https://www.in2013dollars.com/New-cars/price-inflation but it's
| too large to have been reasonably attributable to this trade
| change.
| jsbg wrote:
| > Except that I don't recall cars produced in Mexico ever
| getting more affordable.
|
| According to this site[0], new car prices were about 6% higher
| at the end of NAFTA in 2020 compared with at the start of NAFTA
| in 1994. Considering inflation on other things was on average
| much higher and also that more recent cars are significantly
| safer, more performant, and fuel-efficient--i.e. more provide
| more value--it does look like cars did effectively get cheaper.
|
| [0] https://www.in2013dollars.com/New-cars/price-inflation
| killjoywashere wrote:
| Much like outbreaks that never turn into pandemics, no one
| remembers the efficiency measures that prevent price increases.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| I think a conversation about what the taxpayer should get back
| from university research funding is a good question, I
| personally don't like privatization of medical breakthroughs
| discovered with public money.
|
| However, I am cautious to extend that argument to this
| situation. This is an attempt to use federal funding as a
| backdoor around the 1st amendment (from what I can tell). I'm
| not going to extend this administration any leeway when their
| bull in a china shop policies inadvertently break something I
| don't like. I don't want to improve taxpayer funding of
| research by losing the 1st amendment.
| duxup wrote:
| I don't think your concept her is bad at all.
|
| But I also don't think your concept has anything to do with the
| situation at Harvard.
| nine_k wrote:
| The university, as a private institution, has every right to hold
| whatever views and enforce whatever policies it sees fit within
| itself.
|
| The government, on the other hand, has every right to put
| conditions its counterparty should conform to in order to get
| money from the government.
|
| It's best when the bargaining about such conditions happens with
| mutual respect and without overreach, but respect and sobriety
| are in very short supply in the current administration. Even
| better it is when a university does not need to receive the
| government money and can run off the gigantic endowment it
| already has, thus having no need to comply with any such
| conditions.
|
| (It's additionally unfun how the antisemitism is barely mentioned
| as a problem, in a very muffed way, and any other kind of
| discrimination based on ethnicity, culture, or religion is not
| mentioned at all. Is fighting discrimination out of fashion
| now?..)
| duxup wrote:
| The governments conditions are not unlimited.
|
| Their proposed "viewpoint diversity" is absurd at face value.
| nine_k wrote:
| Indeed. I wish the government side was more reasonable, but
| it's hard to expect now; they are into running a TV show :(
| duxup wrote:
| I think this administration never had the intent to be
| "reasonable".
|
| If they were concerned about out of control diversity
| efforts, I might even semi agree with them.
|
| But this administration and the GOP doesn't value free
| speech. Despite their complaints they're not the least bit
| opposed to the government enforcing their viewpoints on
| people, in fact they just want to do it in spades.
| skyyler wrote:
| Do you believe antisemitism is a problem at Harvard? If so,
| what led you to believe this?
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Do we really believe there is a rooted undercurrent of
| antisemitism at Harvard of all places? Or is this just anti-
| zionist expansion straw manning? I'm sorry but the continuously
| faithless positioning of the Trump administration right now
| makes me believe the antisemitic accusations are a pretext.
| guax wrote:
| The government does not have all that right tho. First
| amendment and all.
|
| I would invite you to read the government letter if you have
| not, but look at each demand and put yourself in the position
| of the recently affected but also try to see if you can hold a
| "controversial" view of the world that should be fine but would
| be put in danger by these demands:
| https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...
|
| Civil rights, suffrage, they were all the controversial opinion
| at some point. Some people still argue that they are but anyone
| against those can go pound sand.
| nine_k wrote:
| I don't think that the government's demands are all
| reasonable, or even permissible. Some things read like they
| were written in the height of the civil rights movement in
| 1960s:
|
| > _By August 2025, the University must adopt and implement
| merit-based hiring policies, and cease all preferences based
| on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin throughout
| its hiring, promotion, compensation, and related practices_
|
| Some though read as if they were written in an advent to a
| totalitarian dystopia:
|
| > _Harvard will immediately report to federal authorities,
| including the Department of Homeland Security and State
| Department, any foreign student, including those on visas and
| with green cards, who commits a conduct violation._
|
| To my mind Harvard is right in bringing this to the public
| attention. It's also free to walk away from governmental
| financing programs that stipulate such conditions (if they
| are even found legitimate), _and is even in a position to do
| so_.
| tikhonj wrote:
| > _The government, on the other hand, has every right to put
| conditions its counterparty should conform to in order to get
| money from the government._
|
| It really doesn't. There are both normal laws and
| Constitutional restrictions on how the government can make
| decisions, and the reasons it can have for making those
| decisions.
|
| I'm very much not an expert here, but this includes
| restrictions on viewpoint discrimination _in funding_.
| nine_k wrote:
| I agree! The government is not entitled to set arbitrary
| conditions. But it's entitled to set some. I suspect that
| some acts of Congress _require_ the government to set some
| conditions on providing governmental funding, as the
| Constitution prescribes: https://www.congress.gov/crs-
| product/R46827
| kashunstva wrote:
| > is not entitled to set arbitrary conditions
|
| Indeed, but most of these conditions _are_ arbitrary and
| often mutually-conflicting. Mask ban? What is the
| scientific basis for this?
|
| The government already set numerous conditions on research
| funding relating to accounting, ethical conduct and so
| forth. Attaching conditions that are only tangentially
| related to the purpose of the funding is almost arbitrary
| by definition.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > antisemitism is barely mentioned as a problem
|
| Because it's very obviously being used as a cover to exert
| control over universities which are deemed to be too "woke"
| (which has nothing to do with anti-semitism).
|
| Yes, antisemitism exists, like many other social ills. But is
| it a major problem at Harvard and these elite institutions? No,
| it is not.
| arp242 wrote:
| So first they demand "Merit-Based Hiring Reform" and "Merit-Based
| Admissions Reform", and then it continues to demand "Viewpoint
| Diversity in Admissions and Hiring".
|
| I can't even engage with these levels of cognitive dissonance. Or
| bad faith. Or whatever it is.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Never mistake a man's rhetoric for his principles.
| enaaem wrote:
| I have never been a "woke" person, but Trump really makes me
| doubt the meritocracy argument. If Trump was a black woman he
| would never get away with half the things he is doing now.
| overfeed wrote:
| > If Trump was a black woman he would never get away with
| half the things he is doing now.
|
| It sounds like you're aware of the present reality of race
| and how it impacts how one is treated in America just for
| being who they are.
|
| > I have never been a "woke" person
|
| I have news for you!
|
| Edit: to be clear, I'm certain you don't match the the
| adversarially bastardized caricature of what a "woke person"
| is, but it sounds like match the original, well-meaning
| definition.
| baked_beanz wrote:
| You have come to the realization that systemic racism exists,
| and it grants privileges to the dominant socioeconomic
| groups. Congratulations, you are now "woke"!
|
| That's what the term originally meant, before it was turned
| into a strawman for "anything I don't like" by the
| conservative media machine and weaponized to divide people.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > If Trump was a black woman he would never get away with
| half the things he is doing now
|
| If Trump were a black woman (or man), he would have never
| survived the release of the Hollywood Access tape and
| therefore would have never gotten elected.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| As others have pointed out to you, "woke" is just from AAVE,
| meaning to be awake to the racial prejudices and social
| injustices of the world. Leadbelly used it at the end of his
| "Scottsboro Boys" [1] in 1938, and it likely was in use many
| years before that. Erykah Badu's "Master Teacher" also uses
| it prominently, which probably helped bring it out of AAVE
| into more mainstream use [2].
|
| Anyway, that's all to say I find it sad and funny that people
| are all up in arms about being "woke" these days. It's like
| stating "I'd prefer to be ignorant".
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrXfkPViFIE&t=249s
|
| [2] whole song is great, but I forgot about this second
| section of the song:
| https://youtu.be/Dieo6bp4zQw?si=fCPJpWIbQV_g5yx3&t=203
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _" woke" is just from AAVE, meaning to be awake to the
| racial prejudices and social injustices of the world_
|
| This was its original use. I think after Ibram Kendi (and
| catalysed by George Floyd's murder) it came to encompass
| something more adversarial. In particular, adversarialism
| for its own sake, even to the point of silliness _e.g._
| defund the police and constantly renaming things.
|
| The hilarious thing is, to the extent we have "woke" today,
| it's literally MAGA. Defund the police became DOGE. Lincoln
| High School the Gulf of Mexico. Bullying universities
| because a kid said mean things about a foreign state.
| sys32768 wrote:
| Harvard admitted it needs to "...broaden the intellectual and
| viewpoint diversity within our community..."
|
| This is a no-brainer considering only 2.3% of their faculty
| identifies as conservative.
|
| https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/5/22/faculty-survey-...
| pesus wrote:
| How is this a no brainer? How many of their faculty identity
| as believers in a flat earth? Are we concerned about that
| viewpoint being underrepresented as well?
| comte7092 wrote:
| Yeah what Harvard definitely needs is more faculty who will
| defend sending people to Salvadoran prisons without due
| process. /s
| arp242 wrote:
| So pick one or the other: having a broad representation from
| many walks of life is important or it's not. You can't mix or
| match depending on which group you like.
|
| And _that_ is what I 'm commenting on. I'm not a fan of
| Trump's "war on DEI" but if it was applied with some
| consistency I could take it as a genuine difference in
| viewpoints. That would be okay. But the movement is railing
| hard and vitriolic against anything with even a whiff of
| "DEI" while applying wildly different standards to
| themselves. This is hard to take as a genuine difference in
| viewpoints.
| janalsncm wrote:
| I am against admissions discrimination so I disagree.
| Conservatives should get into schools based on merit.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Do they ask for your political ideology on the Harvard
| application?
| janalsncm wrote:
| No, which is why it's so surprising so few are able to
| get in.
| fisherjeff wrote:
| Well, 2.3% of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. I would bet
| that, say, the business school has a slightly different
| makeup...
| LPisGood wrote:
| American conservatives are increasingly not grounded in facts
| and reality. This isn't partisan, it's just an observation of
| reality. I used to identify as a conservative, but they have
| become less and less grounded as a party.
| const_cast wrote:
| Conservatives will make observations such as "the most
| educated people are almost never conservative" and they will
| conclude that it's not their ideology that may be on shaky
| grounds, but rather the concept of education itself.
| rstuart4133 wrote:
| > This is a no-brainer considering only 2.3% of their faculty
| identifies as conservative.
|
| That's true now. It wasn't always true. From:
| https://www.aei.org/articles/are-colleges-and-
| universities-t...
|
| - In 1989-1990, when HERI first fielded this survey, 42% of
| faculty identified as being on the left, 40% were moderate,
| and another 18% were on the right.
|
| - in 2016-2017, HERI found that 60% of the faculty identified
| as either far left or liberal compared to just 12% being
| conservative or far right
|
| Now you say it's 2.3% conservative.
|
| The universities argue they haven't changed, it's the
| politics of the right. I'd say they are correct as the right
| now to disavows and ridicules the output of universities on
| things like climate change, tariffs, vaccines, health, voter
| fraud in US elections ... well it's a long list. It wasn't
| like that 30 years ago.
|
| The universities are supposed to be intellectual power houses
| fearlessly seeking out fundamental truths and relationships,
| regardless of what the people in power might think of their
| discoveries. Both sides of politics once celebrated that. Now
| one side wants to control what types of thought the
| universities allow, demanding they monitor, snitch, report,
| and police the on ideas the conservative base don't like.
| That's directly opposed to how Universities operate. They
| allow and encourage all types of thought, but insist they be
| exposed to a torrent of opposing thoughts so only the
| soundest survive.
|
| Frankly, I'm amazed 2.3% still identify with a mob that
| clearly wants to undermine that. I'm guessing it will drop to
| near 0% now.
| toofy wrote:
| that's the faculty of arts and sciences--is this
| administration going to mandate university economics and
| business schools --which likely lean heavily capitalist--
| demand ideological diversity and bring in more communists?
| veny20 wrote:
| Public funds should not be subsidizing wealthy private
| universities. The end.
| wnoise wrote:
| Unless you're speaking about the high overhead rates, that's
| really the wrong framing. The public funds at issue are buying
| things like research, or hospital services.
| worik wrote:
| What an outrageous and incoherent letter
|
| So much for academic freedom
| worik wrote:
| Awesome response from Alan Garber
| rationalga wrote:
| Harvard, as an institution capable of sustaining itself without
| relying on federal funding, bears a heightened responsibility to
| champion academic freedom and intellectual independence. Its
| financial independence positions it to defend these principles
| more vigorously than universities with fewer resources, which may
| face similar pressures but lack comparable institutional
| stability to resist government overreach.
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| "Zaporozhian Cossacks write to the Sultan of Turkey" by Ilya
| Repin
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporozhian_Cossacks#/media/Fi...
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| With their large untaxed endowment, they should be fine without
| federal funding. Make it so.
| tzs wrote:
| They are already are spending billions a year from their
| endowment, which covers nearly 40% of their operating revenue,
| which is around the maximum they can sustainably spend.
|
| Sustainable spending is the whole point of an endowment.
|
| Also endowments are created by a vast number of individual
| donations which often come with restrictions. For example
| someone leaves a bunch of money to university to support a
| professorship. That money and its earnings can only be used for
| that.
|
| Generally the things that are funded by research grants from
| the government are things that cannot be funded from the
| endowment.
| kweingar wrote:
| The aggregate demands of the administration are confusing and
| contradictory. They seem to be simultaneously asking for:
|
| - an end to diversity initiatives
|
| - a new diversity initiative for diverse points of view
|
| - a new policy of not admitting international students with
| certain points of view
|
| - ending speech-control policies
|
| - auditing the speech of certain departments and programs
|
| - ending discipline of students who violate policies related to
| inclusion
|
| - disciplining particular students who violated policies related
| to inclusion
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| It's a good strategy. Even if Harvard had attempted to satisfy
| every bullet point, the govt could still retort that their
| demands were not satisfied.
| disqard wrote:
| Hmmm, is this akin to what Russia means, when it says "we do
| not negotiate with terrorists"?
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Typical mafia technique ensuring perpetual extorsion.
| nineplay wrote:
| The demands of the administration are the demands of a bully
| who doesn't want your lunch money, he just wants you to know he
| can take it away at any time.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."
|
| Any organization is probably in violation of any number of
| rules and regulations due to the sheer number of them.
| Vilian wrote:
| because they can use as excuse to stop the funding nonetheless,
| it's impossible to 100% comply with contradictory requests
| davorak wrote:
| It could be a feature not a bug. Inventible violations can be
| used as leverage for future requests/mandates.
| chairmansteve wrote:
| They go after their enemies (liberals, trans, pro palestinians,
| brown migrants) and help their friends (right wing white
| people).
| Always42 wrote:
| regarding your comment "a new policy of not admitting
| international students with certain points of view"
|
| Do you think Harvard should admit students that are, "hostile
| to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S.
| Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including
| students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism."?
| roxolotl wrote:
| I was brought up as an American to believe that most
| important American value inscribed in the constitution was
| that the government cannot control your speech. So regardless
| of what Harvard does or does not do that quote, coming from
| the government especially, is simply unAmerican on its face.
| janalsncm wrote:
| Whether or not they should is irrelevant. What is relevant is
| the government cannot infringe on Harvard's speech.
|
| Also this has nothing to do with immigration. It would be the
| same situation if everyone at Harvard were 10th generation
| Americans.
| bloppe wrote:
| There are 2 issues here. The first is that it's not
| consistent with ending speech control policies.
|
| The second is that hostility to American values is actually
| pretty subjective. For instance, the January 6
| insurrectionists were very hostile to American values and
| used violent terroristic tactics to try to destroy the
| constitutionally mandated transfer of power. But Trump
| pardoned them all because it improves his ability to wield
| violence against America in the future.
|
| It's impossible to take any of this document seriously in
| that light.
| allturtles wrote:
| > Do you think Harvard should admit students that are,
| "hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in
| the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence
|
| Sure, why not? Everything should be open to criticism at our
| institutions of higher learning. If not there, where? That
| which is above criticism is dogma.
|
| > including students supportive of terrorism and anti-
| Semitism
|
| In Trump administration code, this means "has ever said
| anything positive about the Palestinian people." So yes, them
| too.
| mcphage wrote:
| > Do you think Harvard should admit students that are,
| "hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in
| the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence
|
| I'm not sure you thought this through--if Harvard stopped
| accepting Republicans like you're suggesting, I'm not sure
| how many people would be left.
| exe34 wrote:
| that's an odd take, given how the orangefuhrer treats the C
| constitution.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| Harvard's admittance policy should not be up to the
| government outside of preventing discrimination along
| protected classes. If Harvard admits students that are bad
| consistently, and they turn out to be bad hires/professional
| connections, then Harvard the institution will lose its
| competitiveness with other schools for the best talent and
| previous alumni will pressure/complain that recent admittance
| policies are devaluing their degrees.
| const_cast wrote:
| 1. First off, yes they should.
|
| 2. We both know and understand that's not what's actually
| happening. When you have people peacefully protesting for the
| genocide in Palestine to end and they get disappeared by the
| state, then the situation is different. Please, at least try
| to be honest.
| whatshisface wrote:
| They want to have the old system (deliberate bias and vehement
| denials of there being any "bias,") but working for them, and
| the way to demand that without describing it is to require all
| of the results and "forbid," by name only, the necessary
| methods.
| empath75 wrote:
| What the demand is, is institutional fealty to Donald Trump.
| Trying to interpret it as anything else is going to lead these
| institutions into poor decision making. Harvard is doing the
| right thing.
| exe34 wrote:
| it's pretty clear. it's twitter's policy. neo-Nazi rhetoric
| must be allowed, empathy must be banned.
| babypuncher wrote:
| It makes sense when you realize that their true position is
| "free speech for me but not for thee". The contradictions are
| about censoring speech they disagree with and promoting speech
| they like.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Authoritarian governments are arbitrary governments, all
| decisions are made arbitrarily. Consistency is unnecessary.
| That's the trouble with choosing power as a guiding principle
| over reason or consent.
| atoav wrote:
| It all makes sense with a fascist power logic. The goal isn't
| to implement consistent policy to reach rational targets. The
| goal is to wield power and slowly errode any opposition with
| divisive actions that support anybody that is loyal to you.
| Importantly being loyal doesn't guarantee you will be spared.
| In these goals consistency is irrelevant, in fact being
| inconsistent and acting with arbitrary despotism is a feature
| since it produces more fear.
|
| If you ever find any fascist critique of their enemies you will
| quickly realize that all of which they accuse their enemies of
| doing, they will do themselves. Decry freedom of speech as no
| one is "allowed" to say sexist/racist things anymore? Be sure
| they will go in and ban books, political thoughts and literal
| words. Hillarys emails? We literally operate our foreign policy
| in signal groups.
|
| Quite frankly I am a bit puzzled by the neutrality with which
| some Americans try to analyze this absolutely crazy political
| situation. It is like pondering over the gas mixture in the
| smoke while your house is on fire, absolutely unhinged.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| It makes sense if you understand that they aren't focused on
| general principles. Diversity is bad when it involves non-
| whites, women, gay people or research involving these groups.
| Diversity is good when it involves "race realists." Free speech
| is bad when students are advocating for divestment initiatives.
| Free speech is good when a professor calls somebody the n-word
| online.
|
| The goal is white supremacy and antifeminism.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>- a new diversity initiative for diverse points of view
|
| I'm sure we both know what this one means though. Forcing the
| university to hire people who think the earth is flat and that
| climate change isn't real - for the sake of diversity of
| course.
| spyder wrote:
| and the irony at the beginning of the demanding government
| letter:
|
| _" But an investment is not an entitlement."_
| altruios wrote:
| Governments have a monopoly on violence in exchange for protected
| and upholding our privileged rights. When any government start
| disregarding that contract, so too can the populous.
| throw7 wrote:
| Lot of bluster from Harvard. Harvard is free to not do what the
| gov't is requesting, they just don't get the fed money.
| porphyra wrote:
| Merit-based admission sounds good to me. Harvard is vigorously
| defending its "right" to continue to deny admissions to highly
| qualified Asian applicants out of nothing but pure racism, and
| somehow they are the good guys?
| thrance wrote:
| Do you seriously believe MAGA has any interest in fair access
| to education? Or are you just saying that as a disingenuous
| talking point?
| Vilian wrote:
| because the answer for the racism against admissions from
| asians is deny admission and deport everyone that isn't us-
| american
| os2warpman wrote:
| Merit is not easily definable.
|
| Standardized tests are bullshit, IQ tests are phrenology, class
| rankings are not comparable across school districts. Someone
| who was president of every club at school may be less able than
| a kid who had to flip burgers in the evenings to help make
| rent.
|
| Merit to a university may mean "someone whose charisma and
| social connections will bring great repute to the institution"
| more than "a child prodigy who will burn out at 27 and end up
| fixing typewriters in his parent's garage because they actually
| had an undiagnosed mental illness growing up".
|
| Merit may mean "a middling student smart enough to pass who
| will stick around working as a post-doc temporarily forever
| because they have no ambition beyond performing slave wage
| labor in exchange for the cold comfort of the known and
| familiar".
|
| Any definition of merit is going to be irredeemably faulty.
| Like recruiting sporting talent based solely on stats without
| considering if the talent is an asshole who will destroy the
| atmosphere in the clubhouse and immediately get arrested for
| DUI after being signed.
|
| I thought we wanted to let the market decide?
|
| The government funding aspect is irrelevant. Nearly every
| business in the country receives some form of government
| funding either direct or indirect and they hire based on a wide
| variety of criteria. I was once hired to a position I would
| need time to be a productive in because I am a ham radio guy
| and my boss wanted someone to talk radios with.
| gazebo64 wrote:
| I fail to see how the lack of a perfect quantifiable metric
| of merit logically flows down to "stop admitting Asians
| because we have too many"? Whatever the university's method
| of determining merit is, it should be applied to everyone
| equally, and racially discriminating because one group
| historically performs well is indefensible imo
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yeah, it's like how when they wanted to put in a Jewish quota
| at the university it was struck down and then they found that
| the same percentage of Jewish applicants were well-rounded
| coincidentally so they just stuck to determining if they were
| well-rounded. Today's folk may call it anti-semitism but
| really it was just that Jews Were Square.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Standardized test reliably predict academic success. IQ tests
| similarly.
|
| Here in Sweden, if you do well enough on the entrance exam,
| we simply let you in, even to the best universities. This
| means that people other than hoop-jumpers have a chance.
| bananalychee wrote:
| Both standardized tests and IQ highly correlate with success
| in higher education and career over a lifetime. Harvard's
| performance and reputation have tanked as a result of its
| anti-meritocratic policies, and the market is indeed
| responding, slowly but surely. You are making things up and
| conjuring nonsensical hypotheticals to deny the evidence
| that's right in front of our eyes.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Sounds fine, test for those things and admit the best. Or do
| a random lottery.
|
| Just dont pick and choose students to disqualify based on
| race.
| AzzyHN wrote:
| My father works for a big pharma company, which means they have
| to listen to the federal government or risk being shut down by
| the FDA (which would be easy for Trump to do).
|
| He uses this an excuse for the company's complacency, and by
| extension, his own. I'm glad to see some institutions take a
| stand.
| zoogeny wrote:
| This is a larger idea, just tangentially related to this
| particular case.
|
| In 2011 there was Occupy Wall Street. It was a movement that
| argued that many of the financial problems we saw in 2008 were a
| result of a 1% of wealthy business people who were prioritizing
| their own wealth over the needs of the populations of the
| countries they operated within. I mean, they created a financial
| crisis by inventing obviously risky financial assets based on
| peoples _housing_. They knew it was a house of cards that would
| fall in time but they did it anyway with callous disregard to the
| inevitable human cost.
|
| It was in the wake of that the "wokeness" became a buzzword,
| seemingly overnight. Suddenly, corporate policies were amended,
| management teams were upended, advertising campaigns were aligned
| to this new focus. Women, minorities and marginalized groups were
| championed and ushered in to key public positions. In a brief 14
| years, then entire garbage dump of modern capitalism was placed
| like a hot potato into the hands of a new naively optimistic
| crew. This coincided with huge money printing and zero percent
| interest rate, the likes of which we haven't seen. That new elite
| grew in wealth, stature and public focus. They became the face of
| the "system" as if they had created it instead of inheriting it.
|
| And now that the zero interest rates are done and suddenly
| everyone believes in the scary size of the deficit and the
| ballooning debt, the people sitting in power as we are about to
| actually feel the crash instead of just kicking it down the road
| yet again, those people are the target of public ire. I actually
| see people in these very comments acting as if the looming crash
| was caused by the DEI departments which formed just a little over
| a decade ago.
|
| And guess who is coming back to claim they will save us from
| these DEI monsters? The people who created the actual mess in the
| first place. Yet now, instead of calling for their heads on
| spikes like the public was in 2011, we are literally begging them
| to save us from these DEI proponents.
|
| Our anger has been redirected away from the wealthy and towards
| the minorities with such skill I almost admire it. The collective
| anger at DEI is at such a level that we are willing to cede core
| rights just to damage them.
| matwood wrote:
| This is spot on. The US has enjoyed enormous wealth and
| prosperity, but it's been mostly captured by the top 1% of
| private individuals. The GOP has done a masterful job
| redirecting the blame to China, DEI, immigration, etc... when
| the real problem is that we have not spread around the
| prosperity through programs like universal healthcare, free
| college, and heck, even UBI.
| pjfin123 wrote:
| The Federal government making funding to a university contingent
| on them "reforming" specifically named departments whose foreign
| policy views the executive branch disagrees with
| (Israel/Palestine policy) seems like a clear violation of the
| First Amendment.
| Animats wrote:
| It's a weak response, in that it accepts the Trump
| Administration's position on antisemitism. This is tied to the
| broad definition of antisemitism which includes acts by the State
| of Israel.[1] That definition comes from the International
| Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. There's a more balanced
| definition called the Jerusalem Declaration here.[2][3]
|
| This will lead to a controversial discussion, so I'll stop here,
| with the comment that getting involved in religious wars of other
| countries hasn't gone well for the US. The US has constitutional
| freedom of religion partly because the drafters of the
| constitution knew how that had gone in Europe.
|
| _" Maybe they is not evil. Maybe they is just enemies."_ - Poul
| Anderson
|
| [1] https://www.state.gov/defining-antisemitism/
|
| [2] https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/
|
| [3]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_Declaration_on_Antis...
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I do believe the universities have a lot to change for better,
| but sadly this government is the worst to ask for.
| Debugreality wrote:
| I think it's also important to point out the auditing and spying
| the government is asking the universities to comply with
| including the whistle blower section and things like - "report
| all requested immigration and related information to the United
| States Department of Homeland Security".
|
| It appears that because it's easier to bully, punish and
| disappear individuals than an institution the Trump
| administration is doing everything it can to find out who these
| individuals are so they can be targeted.
| skadamat wrote:
| Re: endowments, really good post on why universities can't just
| tap into endowments for budget shortfalls:
|
| https://medium.com/@myassa_62896/why-you-cant-just-use-the-e...
| blindriver wrote:
| The law in the immigration act to disallow people who espouse
| support for terrorism is a good one.
|
| We protect freedom of speech for citizens because we have to.
| They are part of our country.
|
| I don't believe this extends to foreigners. We should allow only
| immigrants who do not support terrorism and want to be productive
| members of society. This isn't too much to ask.
|
| This is not a right or left issue. This is a pro-America vs con-
| America issue.
| tastyface wrote:
| Define "terrorism."
|
| The administration, for example, freely uses the word to
| describe someone with no criminal record and no proven gang
| affiliations:
| https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lmrwrrkbnf2e
|
| They also use the word to describe Tesla vandals:
| https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/25/us/fbi-task-force-tesla-a...
| spacemadness wrote:
| Assumption: everything critical of Israel's actions in Gaza is
| supporting terrorism. That's quite the take.
| alfor wrote:
| This is welcome change, to they defend admisions discrimination
| on race, sex is beyond me. They will fold, if federal funding is
| not enough, they will find other pressure points.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I think the only way for the universities to escape this
| blackmail trap is to bind together in their response, refuting
| the Trump's claims that they're not doing enough to "stop
| antisemitism" (obviously a cover chosen by the WH because it
| immediately gathers public sympathy), and reject Trump's demands.
| If they cave in now, it will be used against them again.
|
| Take the haircut and wait for either the next presidential
| elections, or maybe midterms if the GOP gets pummeled because of
| this and starts standing up to Trump. One thing we've seen about
| Trump is that he fairly easily reverses course when the right
| pressure is applied.
|
| Granted Harvard's in an easier place than most, but I predict
| Columbia will come to seriously regret their decision.
| kashunstva wrote:
| From the United States government letter to Harvard: "Harvard
| must implement a comprehensive mask ban with serious and
| immediate penalties for violation, not less than suspension."
|
| So if a student has, say, an immunodeficiency syndrome and wears
| a mask to protect their health during the riskier seasons of the
| year, they would face dismissal from the university? (Or worse -
| whatever that is - according to the letter.)
|
| This is how we know that the Republican party has no interest in
| freedom as the word is conventionally defined.
| Loughla wrote:
| They want freedom for themselves. They're free to impose their
| will on others without judgement. That's the purpose.
| zugi wrote:
| > As we do, we will also continue to comply with Students For
| Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ruled that Title VI of the
| Civil Rights Act makes it unlawful for universities to make
| decisions "on the basis of race."
|
| This is already a shift on Harvard's part. When the ruling first
| came out, they announced they'd be finding ways around the ruling
| so they could keep doing what they'd been doing (i.e.
| discriminate against Asians by systematically scoring them low on
| "personality.")
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Can someone confirm that if Harvard turned down Pell Grants and
| Federal student support, they could admit whoever they want?
|
| >Private clubs are generally exempt from anti-discrimination laws
| under certain conditions. For example, being genuinely private
| and not engaging in business with non-members. However, there are
| exceptions to these exemptions. For instance, when a club
| receives significant government benefits or operates as a
| commercial enterprise.
| bedhead wrote:
| One framework I like to use is, "If this thing didn't exist
| today, and someone proposed it, how would people react to it?"
|
| I think it's fair to say that if none of this existed today, and
| someone proposed that the federal government simply give
| universities like Harvard seemingly endless billions, it would be
| laughed out of existence by republicans and democrats alike. All
| of this is the product of inertia at best, corruption at worst.
| It's a different world today and we don't need our tax dollars
| going to these places.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| America is starting to seem like the world depicted in V for
| Vendetta.
| matt3210 wrote:
| problem will only last another 3 years or so
| priyadarshy wrote:
| The wildest thing I read was:
|
| > Harvard will immediately report to federal authorities,
| including the Department of Homeland Security and State
| Department, any foreign student, including those on visas and
| with green cards, who commits a conduct violation.
|
| Conduct violations at Universities are a pretty broad set of
| rules at universities and don't necessarily line up with what's
| legal or not but more with the university's cultural and social
| norms.
| jmward01 wrote:
| We are well past the point where in a future history class a
| student will raise their hand and ask 'Why didn't anyone stop
| them?' followed by 'Why were so many people members of that
| party?'
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